Flatts & Sharpe Music Co.
Flatts and Sharpe Music Co. Soundex Code F432
Owners:
Original: Ed Mooney
Since 2007: Chris Bell (a former pipefitter)
History
Flatts & Sharpe Music Co., is an independent music shop and school on Sheridan Road.
Chris Bell, who grew up at Clark and Devon Avenue, said she took her first guitar lessons 20 years ago at Flatts & Sharpe.
"I bought my first guitar, my second guitar and my third guitar here," she said, now sitting behind the store's counter.
Nearly seven years ago she walked by the shop, then owned by Mooney, and saw a small sign in the window: "Business for Sale."
Ever since, she couldn't shake the idea of taking over.
"We started off with 14 students and a pretty dusty old inventory, and now we're at about 300 students and opening a second location," she said.
Bell said she's part of a dying breed of independent shop owners willing to take a risk on expansion.
"The independent shops are a thing that don't really exist anymore," she said. "We're so fortunate to have an independent movie theater, a bookstore, and a music store in this neighborhood, like, in this one little area."
And that independence, she says, is what sets Flatts & Sharpe apart: "That's going to be the big difference between a mom and pop shop and a big conglomerate corporation."
With 22 teachers and six mostly sound-proof practice rooms in Rogers Park, Bell said she has striven to build "a community through the arts."
She opened a new location, at 6139 N. Northwest Highway, Norwood Park, on Saturday, March 1, 2014, complete with a replica of the store's iconic green-and-gold hand-painted sign.
Listed in: Rogers Park 2016, page 17.
