Joel Plaskett Adds Bookstore To Dartmouth Shop, Ditches Old Name
DARTMOUTH — Joel Plaskett’s downtown Dartmouth coffee shop and record store is getting a new name — several new names, actually.
The Juno-award-winning musician has run New Scotland Yard Emporium, at 45 Portland Street, since 2015. The space features a small coffee shop, a recording studio, and a selection of vinyl courtesy of TAZ Records.
Now, Plaskett is retiring the old name, breaking the business into its individual parts, and adding a new bookstore to the space. He announced the rebrand on September 21 with a minute-long jingle featuring a star-studded list of local musicians.
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The changes begin with Plaskett’s recording studio at the back of the building, which will now be known as Fang Recording. The studio will still be managed by Thomas Stajcer, but now boasts a reworked logo featuring a stylized image of Plaskett’s legendary earless cat, White Fang.
The coffee shop, meanwhile, will keep operating as is, just under a fresh new name: Morley’s (in honour of long-time manager and barista Brendan Morley).
TAZ records will also remain the anchor tenant of the space.
The idea behind the rebrand, Plaskett tells Huddle, is to bring some fresh attention to the space while highlighting the people who made it a success.
“I can be a pretty good ideas person. I come in with a burst of energy and get things happening but then the follow-up and actually making a successful business function on the day to day is not my strong suit,” he says with a laugh.
The new branding recognizes that there are important people behind the different parts of the shop.
“I’m certainly attached to much of it, but at the same time I’m just a piece of it, you know, because what actually keeps it on the highway is a lot of people,” he says.
Plaskett launched his record studio in 2013 and in 2015 expanded New Scotland Yard Emporium with a coffee shop, barber, and TAZ as an anchor tenant.
The barbershop has since disappeared, but the coffee and records remain. Now, Plaskett is adding a small bookstore, Friction, to the space as well.
The bookstore has limited retail space and offers a “curated a selection of notable fiction by some of our favourite authors along with a smattering of non-fiction books on interests beyond the frame.”
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The shop will also sell additional titles online. Plaskett hopes Fricton will become an alternative to Amazon that locals can use to order a book.
Plaskett says the idea for the bookstore evolved much the same way as the original idea for the emporium: it was just something he wanted to see on Portland Street.
“It’s a total experiment, to be honest. I mean, I think we put a lot of heart into the place over the years and this bookstore is just kind of a continuation of that,” he says.
“I have kind of a ramshackle approach to business,” he says “I tend to want to just operate what I like, what I want to see, and then I place my faith in the hope that if it’s resonating with me and a handful of people, and everyone’s excited about something, then it’ll kind work on some level.”
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him feedback at: [email protected]. To read more stories like this, sign up to receive Huddle’s free daily newsletter.