El Cajon Guitars & Music

Guitarists in San Diego County will be happy to hear about a relatively new retail location, El Cajon Guitars & Music (172 E Main Street, El Cajon). Owned by Frank Cogliano and Maria Hart, the shop has been open six months, drawing notice from both local as well as international players.

Notably, El Cajon Guitars & Music specializes in new instruments, leaving the used market to others. El Cajon was their first choice for opening the shop. “With many events in the area involving music, and a community with a rich musical history, we decided that the old historic downtown of El Cajon would be a great fit for us,” Cogliano said. “El Cajon is not without its challenges, but we are hopeful that things will continue to improve, especially with all of the great people in the region that love music and supporting locally owned and operated small shops like ours.”

Ideally the shop is situated close to The Magnolia, which has resulted in a few artist visits. “We are located in walking distance to the Magnolia,” Cogliano said. “We have been grateful to meet some world class professional musicians that have stopped by before their shows, in particular, Steve Vai’s band members, Philip Bynoe and Eric Weiner, stopped in the shop one day shortly after we opened. It was extremely meaningful to us because they were as amazingly personable, approachable, and as kind as they are talented....and to keep up with Steve Vai, we know they are as talented as they get. We had a great time with them and they even asked us to ship a product to them after their tour.”

Others who have stopped in include Belinda Carlisle’s guitarist James Nisbet, and Mumford and Son’s band members who “stopped in briefly, and they bought some spare acoustic bridge pins. We are also located next to the Downtown Cafe, and we have met many local musicians with great talent and kindness. We are additionally inspired by the local working musicians and we pride ourselves on our ability to get them anything they need at affordable prices to keep them performing. We’ve changed strings on guitars while guitar players ran down to our shop and the band kept playing,” Cogliano said.

In a tough business climate, post pandemic, what inspired the opening of the shop? “We are passionate about helping others and supporting musicians at all levels, beginners, intermediate, and professionals. We believe that community service, especially through inspiring others to learn and enjoy making music, is meaningful and we think it is important for people to have a local brick and mortar music shop.” He acknowledges it’s been difficult. “We knew that starting a small business on a shoe string budget as regular working people would be hard, especially in an era where people have become accustomed to purchasing everything and anything online for cheap and delivered right to their front door. We decided to go against the grain and start our shop because we believe communities, especially ones like El Cajon, and the people in those communities need real music shops to come to. We believe that studying musical instruments keeps kids away from drugs and saves lives through music therapy and positive mental health exercises.”

Though it’s doors have barely been open a year, Cogliano is happy with El Cajon Guitars