Groat Instruments

Boy did I have a quite the rigmarole with Groat Instruments. He was recommended to me by Tall Toad Music in Petaluma. This plus all of the five star Unilocal reviews had me convinced he did top notch work. Needless to say, I was wrong… very wrong. Literally all the work I had done by them was of the poorest quality I have seen in years. I brought them three guitars each of which was royally screwed up by Bob and his apprentice, Jordan. Then, after contacting him about the lack of quality of his work he offered to re-​do the work but only if I paid him. He gave me a measly discount of 25% and I went ahead and had the work re-​done. I do not know what I was thinking but I really did want to believe that the guy was capable. Once again, he screwed up the work and even worse this time. On top of this, it took two months longer than he said it would. This is completely unreasonable. This time around, he was busy outside of the shop and had his apprentice Jordan do the work. He completely ruined an extremely rare, mint condition vintage Telecaster. I had this guitar refretted twice by them. The first time they over milled the frets and they were completely square. The guitar fretted out and buzzed all over the place. Groat would not admit to this. They chipped the fretboard in the process and wouldn’t admit to it. After I pointed this out, they tried to repair it but only made the issue permanently worse. The second time around, the frets were completely uneven and weren’t seated properly as confirmed by another veteran tech in the area. He had to give the guitar a complete fret mill and even now there are still major issues. The bone nut they made for this guitar wasn’t even square and did not sit properly in the slot. Seriously, a monkey could have done a better job! On top of all of this, they broke the Fender logo off of the original case that came with this guitar. The other guitar I had them work on was a vintage Les Paul. They did a slightly less horrible job on this refret, so I decided not to have them re-​do it. The string height coming off of the nut, however, was much too low. I do not know how they missed this major detail. All you had to do was strum one chord to hear it buzzing away like a bee-​hive. Last, but not least, I had them work on one of my custom guitars. It needed to be re-​wired. I am left-​handed and indicated that the guitar would need to be wired this way. This job was also totally butchered. Three of the four pots worked one way while the fourth worked the other way. How does this make any sense? They also claimed they couldn’t adjust the pickup height as the mounting system was «difficult to adjust.» Hmmm isn’t it your job to be able to do such things?! The guitar came back a mess and played horribly. It was fretting out left and right. I asked them what was up with this. They claimed I did not indicate I wanted it to play well. I asked for a set-up…isn’t that indication enough? This guitar had to be re-​done as well. Turns out it needed a partial mill. They also charged me for this work. I am probably forgetting ten other issues I had with their work but hopefully this gives you some idea of what I had to go through with these people. I demanded a full refund as I would have to pay someone else to correct these problems. Bob did end up giving me a partial refund but this was not nearly enough to cover the cost of the work I had to have done. I do not know how this company has such a great reputation. I had nothing but bad experience after bad experience with them and cannot believe what they would let out of their shop. If I could give them 0 stars, I would.

I just picked up my guitar from Groat. It was supposed to go in to have a Fender Factory neck bolted on to a custom made Tele body. I was told by the person that I bought the body from that it was manufactured to EXACT factory specs and that all you had to do was bold a neck on it. Jordan and the gang at Groat took the job on and went at it. It bolted together okay but the intonation was off. It took some custom luthier work to fix the other guys mistakes, but the results are fabulous. I would trust Groat with any of my instruments. The quality of their work is very high. The pricing and turn around time were just as impressive. I highly recommend this business.

I have taken a few instruments to Groat for repairs. They were fixed quickly and at a more than fair price. Jordan looked at the latest one and diagnosed the problem and fixed it while I waited. I did not expect service that quick. Bob and his guys are all friendly and knowledgeable about their craft. There is no question that this is my go to shop from now on. You should make it yours too. You will be quite pleased. While you’re there, check out his custom built instruments.

Bob is the man. He’s humble. He doesn’t talk your head off like other luthiers. He knows what he’s doing. He does good work. He doesn’t over charge. He sells funny bumper stickers. Nuff said.

I have taken about 10 – 15 basses to Bob Groat and Jordan over the years since he took over Michael Dolan’s old shop.
Bob and Jordan are excellent at what they do and have made every one of my basses look like new again. Bob is a perfectionist, so he never takes shortcuts. If it’s not good enough then he’ll do it over. I don’t know of any other shops with that work ethic. Thanks Bob and Jordan !!!
— Mike

They have a great shop here. Highly detailed work, great, friendly staff. The owner is very knowledgeable about all sorts of stringed instruments. Recommended.