April 17th, 2023

Hello friends,

   This past week Julie and I ventured out to the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia for a little anniversary vacation and of course, to purchase a small collection of interesting instruments. We bought remainder of a collection from a friend including several interesting old banjos, a 3/4 bass, a few mandolins, fiddles and guitars and a load of old parts. This is our work…this is what we have done for nearly five decades. I will be cataloguing all of these items this week and direct the work flow so our repair shop does not get overwhelmed. 

    While we were in Virginia, we also received a phone call from our long time manager Ryan Yarmel. He told that he has taken a new, full time job with the local public radio station. We would like to wish him much success in his new pursuit. As a result, I will be taking over his responsibilities at the store. Of course this means much less time in Penn Yan and more time in our little apartment in Rochester. Today we are having a full staff meeting to determine the direction of the store. and how it can best serve our customers and our community. Since the pandemic we have not had any staff working full time. This, along with Julie and I moving to Penn Yan has created a lot of “disconnect" and frankly our business has not always been as responsive to customer needs as we would have liked it to be. Hopefully at this meeting, we will put things on the right course. We still have a fantastic staff of dedicated young people who love this business and want to continue making Bernunzio Uptown Music the main draw in Rochester’s "East End".

Sincerely,

John Bernunzio 

….but the Sun also rises…

I saw this on Facebook and I don’t usually share things, but this one really hit home.