Dave's Guitar Shop 1227 3rd Street South, La Crosse, WI 54601

"This is a superb guitar and musical instrument store. And not just for its region ... anywhere. Upstairs there's a guitar museum with the most amazing collection of rare, historic guitars, basses, and amplifiers. Best of the best."

"I began shopping at Dave’s approximately two years ago. I keep records of all gear I buy, sell, and trade, so, just to show that I have a good deal of experience and investment in Dave’s: over the last two years I have given Dave’s about $8800 between cash and trades. I have received about $6670 in trade in from Dave’s, which means they have ultimately profited approximately $2100 off me. The good things about Dave’s are that they often sell gear equivalent to or slightly below Reverb. They will set up a guitar you buy from them IF they have time. There are a total of two employees who deserve recognition at Dave’s: Carl, a professional, skilled and helpful luthier, and Todd, the longsuffering electronics tech. Todd will spend tons of time with you answering any and all questions you have, giving you informed recommendations and, in general, making you feel comfortable and welcome. This concludes the positive things I have to say about Dave’s guitar shop. On my many, many visits to Dave’s over the last two years, here are my observations of their environment that have never changed: 1) It’s unlikely that anyone will greet you or ask if you would like help. 2) The regular, daily floor employees all look like they would rather be bludgeoned to death with a rusty pipe than be working at that store. 3) When customers are present, employees will essentially SAY OUT LOUD/clearly indicate that they hate being there. 4) When they put customers on hold on the phone, they berate those customers out loud. To other employees and any customers who are nearby. 5) If their products in the store are in different condition than what is shown on the website, they do not care. Even if there are missing parts. And they will not offer to find you the parts. 6) Even though their used products have a 60 day warranty (ex: amps and guitars), they (specifically Tyler) will act like it’s a) a big inconvenience b) somehow your fault and c) try as hard as they can to avoid fixing the broken/damaged product they sold you. 7) They are not consistent in trade in values they offer you. As I write this, their website says “We love to take trades and buy products. We offer 80% on trade or consignment and 50- 60% cash payout depending on the item…” When I emailed the store the other day to inform them that they had only given me 54% of the trade-in value of what they are selling my gear for, Tyler responded with this: “Frankly, we take this type of gear as a courtesy to our customers and we don’t really want to take it. With this low end stuff there is not enough margin in it to offer 80% to trade credit on. We generally will offer between 40 to 50% trade credit, sometimes up to 65% on this type of stuff.… Let’s do a little math…” and then he proceeded to break down every single cost that the store incurs when they sell a trade in item. Which I couldn’t care less about. Especially if he couldn’t care less about my experience as a customer. There are many other reasons, but these are the main reasons why I will never shop at Dave’s again. To be honest, if all of these items were true, except for Tyler having acted so grossly arrogant and unfriendly toward me every single time I have ever been in the shop, I might let it pass and keep shopping there. But I want to have a good experience when I spend many thousands of dollars at a shop, and that simply has not happened for me at Dave’s. Finally, I did not overexaggerate anything in this post (except for the rusty pipe part, which I, sadly, believe). Every single thing I wrote can be meticulously backed up with a detailed account of my personal experiences, and/or direct quotes from employees, possibly even qualified by the date and approximate time of day they happened. Shop somewhere else. They will truly guarantee what they sold you, and they’ll probably say “thank you,” a word I never heard at Dave’s over the course of two years and thousands of dollars."

"I’ve bought four or five guitars from Dave’s and had them shipped to Canada. Always a pleasure to deal with, and always felt comfortable in their instrument knowledge. Thanks!"

"If you are a musician or music enthusiast, this shop is one to add to the bucket list. It is the largest collection of historic/rare/collectable instruments I have EVER seen. Not to mention new and used guitars of the top makes and models at fair prices. Absolutely a MUST stop shop!"

"Best guitar store ever. Gigantic inventory, reasonable prices, knowledgeable staff. I was able to trade a guitar in good condition on another guitar. They gave me a good price and a nice set up on my new one."