The Hawaiian Ukulele &Guitar shop will open a new location at Queens’ MarketPlace in April, more than doubling its retail space, and sharing new products with a growing family of ukulele-lovers. ADVERTISING The Hawaiian Ukulele &Guitar shop will open a
The Hawaiian Ukulele &Guitar shop will open a new location at Queens’ MarketPlace in April, more than doubling its retail space, and sharing new products with a growing family of ukulele-lovers.
In addition to instruments, the store will stock an extensive selection of sheet music, CDs, DVDs, books, strings and accessories, plus a new line of ukulele-centered clothing for men and women. Owner/operator “Uncle Uke” Robert Yates has been building and playing instruments since he was a teenager on Oahu. He and his wife returned to Hawaii in 2012 and opened their first location in Kailua-Kona.
Uncle Uke will carry a wide variety of ukuleles, guitars and other instruments, including banjos and banjoleles. Many are custom made by nine different luthiers across the islands, Yates included.
Yates is also working on a number of joint ventures with others around the world. One is with a master luthier in the Philippines to produce six very special pineapple ukuleles, he said.
“Another one coming up, out of Canada, is “Prestige,” a semi-hollow body, cutaway steel string electric ukulele. We’ve also started talking to a company about making a ‘harp ukulele,’ with two necks, one with regular ukulele strings and one with harp strings,” said Yates. “We have all sorts of different things coming up.”
Info: 315-2919, www.hawaiian-ukulele.com.
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