About Us

Welcome to Fan Guitar and Ukulele…established in 2012 this small specialty shop is the newest addition to the RVA music community. We are very excited to be a part of the vibrant and diverse scene that this city is well known for.

 Hello….my name is John Gonzalez del Solar and I opened this shop with my wife Genie. My dream to open this shop spawned from a life- long love affair with the guitar and most recently the ukulele.

 I grew up in Richmond and graduated from the VCU music department in 2002. I then went on to join the Navy to play guitar in the Navy Band and luckily landed in Hawaii where I was first introduced to the ukulele. After playing professionally for seven years, I began teaching lessons at a music store on the North Shore of Oahu. I eventually moved into a sales position and doing repairs and finally into management.

We returned to Richmond last summer both to be close to family and to live the dream of working together in our own small shop. Our goal is simple…to provide a comfortable, fun, and informative environment in which our customers can enjoy the process and experience of finding the instrument that is perfectly matched to them and their own personal musical journey. Being a small independent shop we are able to give that personal touch that makes finding the right gear easy and fun!

We take pride in our customer service and the quality of the instruments we carry, and enjoy every opportunity we get to meet and assist patrons of Fan Guitar and Ukulele. Finding the right instrument can have a huge effect on the level of satisfaction someone gets from playing, and for those just starting out, it can mean the difference between being able to get off the ground or quitting! Every instrument that comes through the door is fully inspected, quality checked, and set up before it hits the sales floor to ensure that it will be the best that it can be in the hands of its new owner. Being a small family run instrument shop gives us the ability to dedicate the time it takes to “get it right” so you don’t have to deal with set up and maintenance issues and get down to what we are all in this for, playing music.

Thanks RVA for giving us the opportunity to live our dream and we look forward to meeting all the musicians and music lovers that share our passion for the amazing and wonderful world of music!