McCabe's Guitar Shop is a musical instrument store and live music venue on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California, United States. Opened in 1958 by Gerald L.

Venue: McCabe's Guitar Shop
Town: Santa Monica, US

McCabe's Guitar Shop is a musical instrument store and live music venue on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California, United States. Opened in 1958 by Gerald L. McCabe, a well-known furniture designer. McCabe's specializes in acoustic and folk instruments, including guitars, banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, fiddles, ukuleles, psaltries, bouzoukis, sitars, ouds, and ethnic percussion. Since 1969, McCabe's has also been a noted forum for folk concerts. The decor at McCabe's is stripped down, with concerts being given in a back room with folding chairs and walls covered with vintage guitars, banjos, ukuleles and other instruments. A poll by Los Angeles Magazine in 2008 ranked McCabe's as one of the 32 greatest things about Los Angeles, with McCabe's defeating the Hollywood Bowl in a direct face-off. In The Guide prepared by the Los Angeles Times, McCabe's is described as "an achingly intimate room" with a "bare-bones setting" featuring "the best guitar music west of the 405 Freeway." The Guide continues: "Legends, traveling minstrels and local talent-they all seem to pass through McCabe's at some point. They may be there to get their guitars fixed; the club has a day job as one of the oldest stringed instrument stores in the city." Frommer's describes the McCabe's experience as "intimate in the extreme; the gig would have to be in your living room to get any cozier." The Metromix guide to Los Angeles calls McCabe's "a mild-mannered guitar/stringed instrument shop by day" that "opens up as a world-class concert venue by night." At full capacity the concert room holds 150. The first concert was held in 1969, a benefit concert to help Elizabeth Cotton with travel fare to get her back home after a concert engagement elsewhere was cancelled, leaving her stranded in the area. That first concert was organized by Mike Seeger and the line-up featured Bryndle, Karla Bonoff, Andrew Gold, and Kenny Edwards. The opening act was Jackson Browne. McCabe's is owned by Robert and Esperanz