India, Sept. 20 -- Sipping coffee as a vinyl plays tunes softly on a record player in the corner. This nostalgic image has captured the fancy of Gen Z across the country, with over 1 million posts tagged #vinylbars on Instagram alone. New vinyl bars are opening in metro cities pan-India, but that's not the only pull. The high-quality music, often playing on large-scale sound systems from vinyl records in the background, is being paired with specially crafted drinks.

This concept dates back to the 1950s, when the Japanese came up with post-World War II jazz kissa. To meet the post-war interest in music and experiences, such spaces cropped up everywhere. Now, similar cafes are bringing the nostalgia for vinyl back to India while embracing ...