By Arvind Dilawar
Photos by Ryan Lavine
If there’s one thing that Jared Rosenberg’s store pointedly does not have, it’s doughnuts. Tucked behind a wine shop and a Mexican restaurant in Stanfordville, Not Donuts Records offers a bounty of new and old music, vintage stereo equipment, works of art and other products from local artisans—just no pastries. Rosenberg explains that the store’s name came from a joke with a friend, imagining a sign with a picture of a record.
“People would mistake it for a doughnut,” Rosenberg says with a laugh, “and everyone loves doughnuts.”
Pastry aficionados aside, visitors are unlikely to be disappointed by Not Donuts. In Stanfordville, a hamlet in rural northeastern Dutchess County with a population of less than 4,000 residents, per the town’s website, Rosenberg’s store is as unexpected as it is delightful. The building’s side entrance leads to a short hallway and two rooms stacked floor to ceiling with his wares, the majority of the space dedicated to new and used records that customers bring in or Rosenberg unearths from local collections and the latest catalogs. The titles run the gamut from classic rock and jazz to new pop idols and indie darlings, from Pink Floyd and Miles Davis to Taylor Swift and Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, each with Rosenberg’s personal seal of approval.
“Everything in this store is something I like,” he explains. “It’s still very much a passion project more than a business. I don’t want to just sell things to make money, if I can’t put them on and say something good about them.”
Rosenberg started Not Donuts in July of 2021, after moving his family from Brooklyn to their country home in Stanfordville full time, following the outbreak of COVID-19. He decided to open the store when his previous career as an editor at a research journal came to an end, envisioning it as a pop-up lasting just the summer. But the store found unexpected success, attracting visitors from as far away as New York City. More important to him, the store became a meeting place for locals, many of whom had similarly moved to the area after COVID. For them, Not Donuts is a place to pursue their interests, make friends, and rebuild their sense of community.
Today, Not Donuts does brisk business buying, selling, and trading, primarily in store—though Rosenberg lists some of his wares for sale online too. The store also hosts regular events, including live performances, exhibitions, and “mixtape parties,” where attendees take turns playing songs to add to a compilation.
Embracing Not Donuts’ evolution from a pop-up record store to a more permanent and versatile space, Rosenberg explains that he’s open to hosting all sorts of events by locals that he feels the store could adequately accommodate. That said, there are still a couple of no-gos, such as the classic rock stylings of the Steve Miller Band—“I really don’t like the Steve Miller Band,” says Rosenberg emphatically, “no Steve Miller Band in the shop”—and, of course, no doughnuts.—notdonutsrecords.com