I’ve owned a number of Dubliners & Guitars over my life and none of them come close to Blue Lion.
The care that they put into each is beyond comparison.
I’m order another set this due to a fire that destroyed mine and Janite has just been so kind in working what I need.
She is also one of the world’s foremost Dulcimer play which is why she and her husband has put so much effort and care to bring out the best
3. Musicians Unlimited
Address: 7425 El Camino Real, Atascadero, CA 93422 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
Bought the green mountain smoker great price and has plenty of stock
Fast and friendly
Awesome mom and pop music store. The owner is very friendly and helpful.
This place is horrible. The guy/owner is rude as hell, seems annoyed to have anyone in there, if you don’t like customer service maybe you should close down. Seriously never come to this place
Great if you’re looking for First Act gear.
Yeesh, bad vibes from the moment you go in. A wall of boxes and amps is nearly barricading off the entrance and once you get past that death trap, the person behind the counter seems quite disappointed to see you. Makes me wonder if everything that you have to get past just to successfully make a purchase is intentional, even if perhaps subconsciously on the owner’s part. Clearly does not want to be bothered with regular business. Not surprised to see the other reviews saying the same. This store has multiple obvious issues. Will definitely not be going back.
4. Grand Central Music & Conservatory
Address: 3195 McMillan Ave # E, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
Needed and XLR cable same day and they were the only place I went to that had em in stock. lifetime warranty too!
I’ve been coming here since 2008. Same owner, great customer service, great place to get accessories. Only one lefty guitar, though
Friendly helpful staff and good prices.
Good music store, good instrument’s, but not much parking, and the location doesn’t really give the business the store front draw!
Friendly staff, good selection of instruments.
Hard to find,but they have what you
need or they can find it
Dan Ernst Owner of grand central music is a Scum Bag with a Capital S.
Bought a roland jx10 from him in feb 2013 said he had it professionally cleaned cause one of the keys did not respond.( shoulda took that as a sighn right there that this would go south.)
Got the roland a week later patch buttons did not work cardtridge port was busted cause he shipped the cardtridge inside of the synth and the internal battery was dead.
Talk to him about going to repair man he got upset and said his repair man pro clean it and made sure it was in running order.
Took it to repair man costed 166.00 he begrudglingly said fine send him receipt.
So rapair man did two weeks go by no response.
The owner is a bs’er and a finagler.
Do not support.
Do not trust.
Eventually we will cross paths Dan.
Thats not a threat.
Thats a promise.
I ordered the bass a year ago in this shop! But so far, they can not send me a bass and do not return the money! What are the problems? I do not know! And nothing intelligible do not meet!
5. The Porch
Address: 22322 El Camino Real, Santa Margarita, CA 93453 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
Friendly staff, high quality food and great atmosphere.
Nice little cafe on the main drag in Santa Margarita. Good service and food.
Best cafe in town
Good food, little expensive
Good breakfast enjoyed the atmosphere. Refer the Range restaurant to your a/c guy.
Pretty good menu with good food
went there this morning and got a toasted bagel with cream cheese to go. Bagel was warm, not toasted, cream cheese spread as thin as butter.
Went there a few months ago for biscuits and gravy, gravy tasted like it was from a can.
On several occasions have been waiting in line and the person at the checkout will stop taking anyone’s order to go and hug and chat with a person they know who just entered the restaurant. Other employees will interrupt someone placing their order to chat about something, whether related to the restaurant or not.
When a person is in either of the above situations and asks the cashier if they could finish taking their order before they start a new conversation with someone else, they turn defensive and just mean.
We have known Mr. Bachman thru the band, advanced band and guitar ensemble program at St. Rose Catholic School for the last 5 plus years. Mr. Bachman has tremendous patience and creativity with his students. We have loved hearing our daughter play the alto saxophone and our son now on guitar. Thank you Mr. Bachman for your talent and gift of music.
He is a patient teacher and very helpful. I’ve been playing guitar for about 6 or 7 years and there is always something new for him to teach me. He is a nice instructor but firm on what needs to get done. He will make your lessons fun and exciting while learning the fundamentals and other things to build your guitar career on.
I started taking guitar lessons from Jim about 15 years ago. I had taken a few lessons from other teachers but didnt like the way they taught. Jims approach at teaching was much different, he showed me an easy way to figure out the fretboard, and within weeks I was playing to jam tracks. I havent seen Jim in a while but now I have a 7 year old son who wants to play guitar so I think I’m gonna have Jim teach him too.
This is a great place for musical instrument or singing training. Also if you need instruments or accessories, the prices are comparable to online retailers such as Amazon. Buy here and support local business. The instructors we’ve worked with are top notch and work well with kids. My son loves learning to play the drums.
I had an emergency with my kids and had to cancel lessons. They refunded my order without being asked and were very helpful.
Five star customer service! Thanks
Great teachers. My son has drums with wyatt in their paso studio, and all our experiences have been nothing but exceptional with all their teachers as well as management. We’ve also hado our daughter’s in piano and voice. Great operation.
13. Matt’s Music
Address: 211 S Main St, Templeton, CA 93465 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
Excellent customer service, and attention to detail, amazing product line!!!
Great store… A home to musicians, and aspiring artists! Matt is knowledgeable and friendly… Everything you need to be a part of the central coast music scene!
Awesome store on par with McCabe”s
Nice little place. Have gone in a few times for reeds and picks. Staff is really nice and helpful.
I will say that they advertise that they have music teachers who offer lessons there. And say to call for availability… don’t waste your time. I called six times (in a month) to inquire about violin lessons and left messages each time, never heard back. Finally go in, and they say they don’t offer lessons for her age, not a big deal, it just was an irritant to not have messages returned.
We love having Ken play at the Cape. He’s great with the guests, plays a variety of music. Highly recommend him.
Ken does an outstanding job of getting the crowd into the “fun mode” with his musical selections. A true professional. Very upbeat and communicates well to the crowd through his music. Highly recommend for any event.
What a great collection of guitars both new and used.
The service is excellent and the variety of choices is great!
If you ever get to see the museum, it’s incredible!
They also offer repair services. You can find just about every make of guitar here and If you know your stuff, there are some really rare finds in the mix!
My son and husband loved this place!
They have it all – tons of amps and guitars in stock. I spent an afternoon playing Martins picking the right one. I think they have the full Martin line to choose from – beginner to rare collectible. Joe has it organized by build/maker and price range. I got my American grand performance at a good price (less than msrp) and love shopping local. I can’t imagine dropping significant money for a quality guitar from an online store that I hadn’t played first.
Friendly staff and great selection of guitars.
Awesome store huge selection
Pretty cool place
I went in to look at guitars with my son, I saw the store online and really was looking forward to seeing some cool guitars. The woman approached me right away and was super rude, saying we couldn’t try any guitars unless we were going to buy something. Then we went to look at acoustic guitars and the guy was just following us, he didn’t even care to help us out or ask if we had any questions. I was looking to purchase a nice Martin, but not from there not ever. Super rude!!!! I have a lot of friends who were looking to check this place out as well. I will let them know about my experience too. They would have gotten some great business but they missed out. I would have given their store 0 stars but had to give them one.
Bought the Dean Soltero honey flame burst from there. Half off of 800.00 so I should’ve known there had to be a flaw in it. I was so stoked that they fed off of that knowing I’d most likely buy that guitar, I assumed they just wanted to get rid of that older model. Took it home and noticed a buzz towards the 12th fret and on and on both 6 , 5, 4, and 3 strings. Raised the saddle and bridge a bit but still a buzz. Took it back a day after the 3 day return policy because it was my only day off that week. and the owner proceeded to tell me it was a environment thing that the change in temperature made the neck bend. He adjusted the neck but still to no avail. He went on and on as if To tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about and insisted it was the weathers fault. Still spent close to an hour trying to adjust the truss rod but still did not remedy the buzz. Then he kept telling me I play too hard on the strings and that he couldn’t hear nor feel a buzz, almost to the point where he was almost implying that I was stupid. I kinda alluded to exchanging the guitar but he insisted it was me. Needless to say I loved the guitar and had hoped it can be fixed. Now I moved a good 10 hours away from SLO and I’m stuck with a guitar that buzzes no matter what I do. Nice selection of guitars though. Curse this shop if I can’t get this buzz out and end up having to take it to a professional. Buyers beware.
I have lived here all my life, and I went into this story for the very first time just the other day, because my son plays guitar now, and we needed a new string. The women that works there was very rude to my daughter, she stayed with me the entire time, and she knows the rules (don’t look with your hands, look with your eyes) my daughter is very well behaved, she is homeschooled and suffers from a rare illness that has caused her to grow up allot faster. This women obviously had it out for my daughter as soon as we walked in. She followed behind us the entire time, and if my daughter even looked like she was about to touch something she would jump right in, and either push her hand away, or tell her to not try to touch it…. finally right before we left my daughter was looking at a little table with guitar strings attatched, she strummed one string one time! And the lady grabbed her hand shoved it away, and said don’t touch, you don’t know what your doing!! Ok? Ok? Ok? Say ok! My daughter said no thank you and turned away. The lady said no thank you? Really?….the only reason I did t leave sooner was because they had my sons guitar, but I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER go in their again, that lost my business and anyone else I know that plays instruments!
17. Cheap Thrills
Address: 563 Higuera St, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
I love cheap thrills my dad brought me there a lot when I was a kid Jodi long hair who works there is great and really cool. That’s what makes that place awesome. Someone at GameStop said that their competition but no one can keep up with cheap thrills.
Very large selection of classic videogames!
They carry fresh pressed Vinyls here
Good selection, customer service is “aight”
Nemos (which is right next door) is great, big selection of comics and dvds.
Cheap Thrills is also not bad, although their metal section is lacking. Every so often they’ll have something rare or imported for a low cost (usually less then $10 or so). Their other sections are also decent.
Huge array of albums, comics, movies, and more! A bit of a maze to navigate, but there sure are some treasures to be found here. Friendly service and great prices.
Bought q cd would not pkay in my car. Brought it back to exchange. They refused to give me full price in return. All I asked for was store credit. The assistant manager was rude and relentless in his fight to not let me exchange my cd!!! BUY IT ONLINE FROM ANYONE ELSE!! After I’ve spent hundred of dollars there for myself and my kids. To get treated in such a dismissive manner!? I will never step foot in that rip off business again. Ps brand new cds at Walmart for $5.
I don’t see why the warrantee on the games there don’t let you replace them, only if they don’t work when you buy them. Which is highly unlikely because every game there is cleaned up a lot where it will work. One of the games I bought broke one day, I took it in and they told me “the warrantee is only good for if it doesn’t work at first” and they offered to put it in their disc fixing thing. I was there for 30-40 minutes, took it home and it still didn’t work. Not the best experience from a place that has that many selections of music, games, movies etc. If you like them, that’s cool. But I recommend finding your entertainment elsewhere.
My initial visit was lackluster at best. Older staff were grumpy and clueless; not of much help finding items on my want list – looked it up in their computer system, got the spelling wrong multiple times & played it off as my fault, then just pointed me to the genre area (where I had already been and looked). All discs are in the plastic carrier theft protection pain in the ass; so you have to flick through each item front art rather than scan the spines – takes forever. Add to the pain of the low height of shelving for the CDs, and you grow tired of the hunt rather quickly.
Selection on sub-genres was lackluster at best. Being a college town, you would think the selection would be diverse – no so.
If you did find a title you wanted, pricing was on the expensive side. Anything in the gaming console section is extremely overpriced – I found games I picked up last week for $4 and $5 that they were asking $15 and $20. A PS2 Guitar Hero controller for $35?!? Outrageous! The asking pricing on the stereo gear was also insane – $65 for a 100 disc Sony player is laughable.
The check out process is also antiquated – the student had to fill out a slip for each disc; then put some sticker over every UPC. Seriously?!?!? Add in they could not find the shipping boxes that they had on display, the entire experience was so easily tainted – and could have been prevented.
Not a good visit, not a good first impression/experience.
18. S. & K. Music Lessons
Address: 175 Santa Rosa St, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
My daughter and son have been having music lessons with Kenneth and Shaira for about a year now and I’m so impressed with the progress they’ve made. Kenneth and Shaira are incredibly patient and professional and I couldn’t be more grateful for the gift of music that they are instilling in my children.
Kenneth has been teaching my son music (piano & mostly drums) for over four years. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Kenneth and what his approach has done for my son’s musical talent and ability. Kenneth is patient, kind, flexible, and truly knows how to grasp the student’s own cognitive perception of musicality and make it sharper. He fully envisions the way each student uniquely captures concepts, and maximizes it with compassion, reinforcement, and extreme skill. Kenneth is a treasure of a music instructor on the Central Coast and his positive energy brightens anyone’s day! He and Shaira have built a beautiful way for kids and adults to learn and have fun with music, and we wish them continued success always!
Kenneth is music. He embodies everything one might envision in an excellent music teacher. His passion for music, attention to students and quality instruction will keep us coming back for more lessons. I am so grateful for the love of music which he has inspired in our son.
19. Guitar Center
Address: 443 Betteravia Rd, Santa Maria, CA 93454 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
The store manager Pat spent a total of 30 minutes helping me with a difficult and unique technical issue with my recording equipment. Extremely patient and friendly
The workers are so kind and helpful, they had everything I was looking for. I was asked if I need help and received assistance quickly!
I primarily use this store to purchase strings. The guitar selection is limited, especially for high end guitars. The store was clean. I don’t like the fact that most guitars are locked, but I understand why. Customer service was okay. It took me a long time (1/2 hour) to check out because two people in front of me had issues with products they purchased. I would have one clerk available to process customers who just want to “buy and leave” and others to help with product issues away from the front counter. The steel string selection was okay but I felt the nylon string selection was limited.
small variety of guitars
People at this store are rude. The employees and the manager are total idiots. Had a horrible experience there.
Incompetent staff from sales & manager. Not knowledgeable of their in store stock !!!! Rude I do not recommend shopping there !!! Go elsewhere !!!
20. OC Music In RSM
Address: 29911 Aventura F, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688 , Santa Margarita , California , United States
John Scott is the best- thanks for taking so much time and care!!
Best place to Guitar repair and all other instruments repaired
Great place. Bought an acoustic guitar from them. Competitive pricing vs online, and did not have to pay additional amount to have initial setup, that was already done. Very happy with purchase. Looking forward to starting my lessons there!
One of my grandsons wanted to learn the guitar. After researching numerous places for lessons I settled on here. What a good choice! The staff was just so kind and helpful. He starts his lessons next week and I’m looking forward to see how he progressive. Fine place.
Meh. Not very good at teaching guitar. I left after three lessons.
