AN EXPANDING York music store is now offering even ‘mor’ – a café with a performance stage and a wall featuring York musicians’ posters and flyers.

Mor Music moved to new premises in Fossgate early last year as part of a strategy to keep evolving to meet the needs of its customers.

Owners Lynne and Phil O’Dea said they always listened to customers, who range from children as young as seven buying their first guitar to more mature customers, who are often looking for an investment guitar.

“We found that our younger customers lacked an informal social area that they could go to, while some customers would often leave the shop to go elsewhere for a coffee before making a decision on a purchase,” said Lynne.

“We therefore decided to create the solution to this instore by creating a café area with a relaxed atmosphere, where our customers of all ages could have a drink and a snack surrounded by guitars, in what appears to be the first of its kind in the UK.”

She said the 14ft-long serving counter was repositioned nearer to the doors, leaving a 25 sq metre area at the rear of the shop.

“We built a partition wall and door, and then created a feature wall involving York musicians. We asked them to bring in their gig posters and flyers, then applied them to the wall as an interesting backdrop,” she said.

“We then put photographs of this on our Facebook page, allowing the bands to tag themselves in, which created a huge buzz about our new café. We plan to refresh and revive the wall on a monthly basis, by adding new posters and flyers brought into the shop, then adding new photographs to our Facebook pages so that the wall is constantly evolving, and always being talked about and tagged.”

She said the shop’s Americana theme was carried through to the café, with barstools and black glass bar tables which resemble vinyl records, and a stage area had been created so that intimate acoustic gigs could be held.

“The MOR Music Cafe has created a huge buzz in the York music community with many people telling us what a fantastic idea it is.”

The café officially opens on Saturday.