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Guitar shops worth the trip in Texas

16 shops across 4 areas.

The scene runs through Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and more. Every entry is researched and carries the date it was last verified.

• Dallas–Fort Worth

  7 shops

  One metro on the page, four counties on the ground. Denton and McKinney bookend the northern tier about forty minutes apart, Grapevine and Addison sit well south of that line — the Addison room being one storefront of three that shop keeps — two more are in Dallas proper, and Fort Worth has one of its own out west. Pick a corner rather than the whole thing. Hours bind harder than mileage here. Charley's shuts at four on Saturday and is dark Sunday and Monday, Frequency Co is appointment-only as a standing policy rather than a passing one, Little d is running by appointment at the moment, and Killer Vintage publishes conflicting hours on its own site. Ring ahead.

• Austin

  3 shops

  Three shops that do genuinely different jobs — a vintage room, a boutique room, and a general shop that has outlasted most of the city around it. All three sit within a few miles of each other, but check hours before you plan the run; they do not all keep the same days.

• Houston

  3 shops

  Southpaw sells left-handed instruments and, by its own account, close to nothing besides. Add a shop that bills itself Rockin' Houston Since 1972, and a third holding the deeper of the two catalogues the Houston shops here publish on their own sites. Two of the three publish hours that disagree with themselves, and the third an address with no East or West on it, so ring ahead.

• San Antonio

  3 shops

  San Antonio's guitar trade runs up McCullough Avenue — a repair-rooted acoustic specialist and a boutique electric room — out to a shop on the metro's northwest edge in Boerne.