Meet Matt Lehman | Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt Lehman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
At the age of 40, I was tired of working for other people and making them money. I had worked in the restaurant industry and as apartment managers for most of my life and there is a reason you don’t see a lot of servers or Bartenders over the age of 40. It’s hard work and takes a toll on your knees and mental state. I had always held small odd jobs or had weird hobbies that padded my income on the side as well, I had started selling on ebay in 1998 and it was always a way to make some extra cash if I found something ‘in the wild’ as the pickers call it, be it a vintage hawaiian shirt or action figure.

I had also started buying storage units around that time but it was a different world, long before selling online was a big thing, most stuff was sold through the newspaper or garage sales, which I didn’t really have the time or the space to hold living in an apartment, so I would only buy one every few months.

When I finally decided to quit my job as a bar manager and try selling at swapmeets in 2012, I had a couple grand in the bank and a mortgage for the house my partner (later Fiance) lived in. I did that for about a few years. I would pac a trailer and my truck with junk at 3 or 4 am, sell all weekend, sometimes sleeping in my truck, and come home and unload what didn’t sell.

After a few years, I decided to open my own shop. I had barely enough money to pay the rent and insurance, but I had a lot of inventory and some credit card debt. The shop was an instant success and I never really looked back. The shop was voted best second hand shop (and later Record store) for every year it was open.

Around 3 years in, I noticed that the prices of storage units was being driven up to the point that they weren’t really a reliable business opportunity as much as a crapshoot and a gamble. That’s fun and all, but not when you’re trying to be profitable. I had also noticed that everyone that came in my shop from the age of 12-65 would gravitate towards a box of records I kept in the corner. A friend came in with her father’s collection and I bought it. Before I sold that collection (in about 2 weeks) I had purchased 2 more collections and Spatula City Records was born.

It wasn’t long before I was the largest used record store in the area.

Another friend was bugging me to start a website and sell online, but I was pretty much against it as I was doing fine and I had really wanted to get away from selling online since I had done it for the better part of 20 years. After a year af hounding me, I decided to give it a try, because we were hoping to move back to AZ to be closer to my family in Prescott. I started building the website with the intend of launching in June of 2020, Covid hit and the shop was shut down and I pushed the launch to May and it was even more successful than the shop had been!

Almost 2 years later, I handed the keys of my shop to a friend that had lost his job due to Covid and we moved to Mayer. We only sell from the website at this point, but who knows what the future will bring.

I’m a big nerd and am always tinkering with something and love stereo gear. So Spatula City’s youtube is filled with product reviews and tutorials on how to fix warps, scratches, etc. I have people from all over the world ship me records to fix for them.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Spatula City was born from a love of music and Weird Al Yankovic. (Spatula City is a reference to the movie UHF)

There are only a handful of record stores that sell used records online through their own website. There are even fewer that ultrasonically clean, and re-sleeve them before they are shipped. Music is a way express yourself, connect with your feelings, and to connect with the past. Every record means something different to every person that picks it up, So I think it’s important to give the buyer the best experience they can get, whether its a $3 record or a $1,000 record.

Spatula City is first and foremost a part of the community it is in. And we pride ourselves on helping those in our community whether its in buying used records, putting money back into the community through charity, or donating our time to worthy causes. We also do our part for the planet. We make all of our shipping boxes from used cardboard and they are the most durable in the record business.

I am always surprised and humbled when someone from around the world contacts me and asks me to take a look at their record to see if I can fix it or to ask me deeper questions on a product I reviewed.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This will be the most boring question of the interview.

I am a homebody and I have 5 acres of land and 2 greenhouses. we live about 40 miles from much of anything. So when my friends visit, they are usually looking to get a way from the city and I love to cook so there will be a lot of food and cocktails served.

Having worked in restaurants most of my life, we love to try new restaurants and bars and I’m a sucker for live music, specifically a small bar with a stage and acoustic music or something like that.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are several.

My Fiance, Deborah, for always supporting me while I chase windmills.

My Parents and family for keeping me grounded and my work ethic

A special shout-out to my Grandmother who gave me the money to buy my box truck, which was the backbone of my business and I would have failed without it and her.

Michael for strong arming me into building a website and his friendship

The community for supporting all of my endeavors.

John and the Bertram Family for trusting me with their bar for so many years.

Website: www.spatulacityrecords.com

Instagram: spatulacityrecords

Facebook: Spatula City Records

Youtube: Spatula City Records