You’re going to have moment of cognitive dissonance when you walk into Lonely Hound Guitar Co., located off Laurens Road on Shoppers Drive, across from Liberty Café. Yes, you’ll see a wall full of gleaming vintage and used guitars and basses, nearly 30 in all, hanging from the wall.
It’s very much a kid-in-a-candy-store moment if you love the electric guitar. Then you’ll probably notice the Sum Girls Salon to the left of those guitars, a hair salon that occupies the other half of the same building space. Lonely Hound Guitar Co. is run by musician Chris Hall, and Sum Girls Salon is run by his wife, Cat, all under one roof.
“My wife and I had been talking for a few years about opening a hair salon,” Hall says. “And when I found this spot, the location was perfect, and the layout of the building was perfect. And I just had this idea that I could do a guitar shop and a hair salon in the same building, and it would be super cool.”
Lonely Hound has been open for almost a year. It started off by selling a lot of the owner’s stock.
“I’ve been playing and touring in bands for probably over 20 years now,” Hall says, “and I just love guitars. I love having guitars around, I love playing them, and I’m always on the road. So I like to frequent guitar shops and bring a lot of this stuff home from being on the road. A lot of the guitars you see in the store came from Chicago, Atlanta or Nashville.”
Hall says that Lonely Hound Guitar Co. has picked up steam since those early days, and he’s about to put out a new collection of recently acquired guitars, some through trades. And it doesn’t hurt that the shop is just next door to Pharmacy Records, allowing musicians to get both their vinyl and instrument fixes.
“We love being beside Pharmacy Records,” he says. “They’re good friends of mine, and we fit right in. We’re perfect neighbors.”
The salon and guitar shop both plan an event in early October that will feature specials at both businesses, but in the meantime, Hall will simply smile, sell and look at his wall of guitars.
“A lot of guitar players like myself probably have a dream that one day they’ll work with guitars,” he says. “And that just something I always thought would be neat.”
Lonely Hound Guitar Co. is at 23 Shoppers Drive across from Liberty Café. Call 864-263-7622 or visit the store’s Facebook page.
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