Denver record store Twist & Shout has been sold to new owner Patrick Brown

Denver music institution Twist & Shout — a longtime, locally owned record store — has been sold to a new owner, founders Paul and Jill Epstein announced Monday.

The Epsteins, who started the retail store 33 years ago, sold the business to store manager Patrick Brown, Paul Epstein said. He expects the store will continue to thrive, citing Brown’s three-decade role managing Twist & Shout and its year-over-year growth due to the continuing explosion of vinyl record sales and renewed interest in CDs.

“Patrick and I started talking about it, and within a half-hour, we shook hands and essentially the deal was struck,” Paul Epstein, 63, said of the negotiations that began last summer. “It’s not an easy decision and it’s been in the works for about five years.”

Twist & Shout, located at 2508 E. Colfax Ave., is one of the region’s biggest record stores, and one of Colorado’s last remaining music-retail icons, following the closure of national chains such as Tower Records and Virgin Megastore, and the near-total implosion of local chains such as Angelo’s.

Along with other resilient, independent shops — including beloved punk haven Wax Trax Records — Twist & Shout has beat the trend of traditional, brick-and-mortar music emporiums being replaced with online shopping and digital streaming.

Through it all, the Epsteins and Brown have kept an eye on best-selling titles and merchandise as much as up-and-coming local artists and deep selections of rare jazz LPs. They have hosted dozens of in-store performances from music legends such as Elvis Costello, John Cale and Patti Smith, plus Trey Anastasio, My Morning Jacket, Widespread Panic and Denver’s own Nathaniel Rateliff.

Brown has worked at the store for 30 years because it’s the type of environment he likes to see out in the world, he wrote via email.

“The challenges are the same as they have been over the last few years — combatting the effects of a digital-only mindset, keep(ing) a close eye on the shifts of what people are looking for, and so forth,” he wrote. “But Twist has always been good at riding the changes in music culture.”

Against considerable odds, Twist & Shout also stayed open for business for most of the last two years, closing only from March through May of 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, it has returned to full strength in distinct stages, slowly reopening with limited hours, smaller capacity and, until very recently, mask requirements. Epstein credited his Paycheck Protection Program loan with part of the store’s resiliency, but also his dedicated staff.

In 2021, Epstein said he was surprised to see sales rise 25% over 2019’s otherwise healthy, pre-pandemic numbers. Notably, 2020’s numbers had been down 25% from the previous year — making last year’s sales a whopping 50% better than 2020.

Epstein thinks pent-up demand from music lovers, following a pandemic period when most concerts and other in-person activities were verboten for a time, has played a role in the occasionally long lines outside the store — including on its three recent Record Store Day promotions.

“(It’s) the kind of store I’m excited to stumble upon when I’m traveling; the kind of place I want to shop and to hang out,” Brown wrote. “And because I’ve worked here for three decades, I have had no small hand in shaping the feel of the store as well.”

The Epsteins formerly ran Twist & Shout locations on Alameda Avenue and South Grant Street but relocated next to the historic Lowenstein Theatre in 2006. With 12,000 square feet of vinyl, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and related toys and merchandise, it remains one of the anchors of the cultural complex across the street from East High School — joined by the Tattered Cover bookstore (which currently occupies the Lowenstein space) and Denver Film’s Sie FilmCenter.

The Epsteins, who own the standalone, purpose-built commercial building and parking garage that houses Twist & Shout, Chipotle and another storefront, will continue to act as landlords for the tenants — including Twist & Shout.

Paul Epstein declined to name the purchase price or terms of the sale. In 2016 the Epsteins put the building on the market for $4 million before later removing it. “I’m tired of being a landlord,” he told The Denver Post at the time. “I just wanted to be a retailer.”

Now, Paul and wife Jill, 73, are fully retiring from Twist & Shout, Epstein said. But after devoting their lives to it for more than three decades, their marks are permanent. All 31 employees will keep their jobs, Brown said, and Epstein’s vast collection of music memorabilia will remain on display. The culture they created there — tight-knit, hard-working and closely managed — seems likely to endure.

“I think it’s genuinely an institution now. You see lots of families in here, and some of them are grandchildren of the original customers,” Epstein said. “Younger people are in here buying all these ’70s records… They must have just discovered (Fleetwood Mac’s) ‘Rumours’ and (Pink Floyd’s) ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ I’m sure you’ll still see me shopping in there. I’ll be like the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

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