Velia Bravo poses with the eclectic vinyl offerings at Flip Side Record Parlor, which she helps run with her husband, Ramon Cuellar. Flip Side recently reopened amidst financial challenges.
Rene Guzman/San Antonio Express-News
Business is back on the turntable at Flip Side Record Parlor. At least for now.
The South Side institution at 840 SW Military Drive recently reopened amid financial setbacks that had kept shop owner Ramon Cuellar locked out since May. The music resumed July 24, following a desperate plea from Cuellar the day before for help raising $8,000 to prevent the property owners from shutting Flip Side’s doors for good.
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Flip Side is now open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.
“Thank you all for your support and prayers,” a Flip Side post declared later that same Friday on Facebook. “Flip Side Record Parlor is now open. Thank you Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.”
“We’re pleased that Flip Side Record Parlor has reopened and wish them success,” property management company Caisson Real Estate said in a statement to the Express-News.
Flip Side has been slinging wax for a little more than half a century, an eclectic wood-crate empire of vinyl lined with vintage KISS posters, classic cassette tapes and CDs, and enough incense to fog a dozen head shops. The record store also has quite the concert ticket history, as evidenced by a customer’s homemade banner of blown-up ducats to Dio, Bob Seger and other rock acts San Antonio concert promoter Stone City Attractions brought to town back in the day.
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KISS posters and other hard rock memorabilia line the walls of Flip Side Record Parlor, which has been in business since 1972.
Rene Guzman/San Antonio Express-News
The music blared on an otherwise quiet weekday afternoon as Cuellar’s wife, Velia Bravo, tended the store, a man in a tan Spurs T-shirt here and a lady leaning over a T-shirt counter there.
“We’re still in the hole,” said Bravo, who, like her husband, first worked at Flip Side in the 1990s. “It’s been rough, very stressful, personally and (in our) business life. But we’re here. So what we’re trying to do is organize our stuff because we still have plenty of product to sell.”
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Bravo said they called upon family and good friends to help them out. Meanwhile, customers old and new lined up outside the store at 5 p.m. the Friday they reopened, spinning in and out of the shop well into the midnight hour.
“The outpouring has been wonderful,” Bravo said. “We’re a tight community, and our customers are so loyal and so awesome.”
Flip Side first rolled out the records in 1972 with original owner Doug Lease at the corner of Southwest Military Drive and Commercial Avenue. By the ’90s, Cuellar’s late sister, Clarisa Peña, had become the face of the store. She worked alongside her brother and Bravo, as a fellow clerk and then manager, before taking over in 2011 when Lease died. Flip Side moved to its current home about a year later.
Peña died of colon cancer in January 2020 at age 46, leaving Cuellar to run the shop at the dawn of a global pandemic and further financial uncertainty.
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“We’re here to keep this legacy alive,” Cuellar told the Express-News in 2020 just a couple of weeks after Peña’s death. “My sister would have wanted that.”
A shrine dedicated to late Flip Side Record Parlor owner Clarisa Renae Peña, who died from colon cancer in 2020 at age 46. Peña’s brother, Ramon Cuellar, took over the business after her death.
Rene Guzman/San Antonio Express-News
Cuellar revealed that legacy was in jeopardy on May 22, 2026, with a social media post announcing the property ownership had “drastically increased” the rent and locked them out despite “consistent efforts to make partial payments and show ownership that we are doing everything we can to catch up.”
“I know many of us are feeling the squeeze of the current economy and rising costs of living, and it pains me to share that our shop is facing those same harsh realities,” Cuellar wrote with cash app handles for donations.
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Cuellar followed-up his post July 23 with an urgent Thursday morning call to raise $8,000 by Friday or, in the words he attributed to the new management, they “will need to move forward with moving (Flip Side) out.” Cuellar added he was even willing to sell his classic 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang to fund the cause.
A day later, he posted Flip Side was back in business. And yes, he still has the keys to his Mustang.
Bravo noted Flip Side will have sidewalk sales and special fundraisers featuring area bands. The first fest is planned for Aug. 29 at Brooster’s Backyard Icehouse, a family- and pet-friendly open-air bar at 815 Pleasanton Road.
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“The plan is not to close the doors on this store,” Bravo said. “That’s the bottom line.”