Geoff Benge’s Guitar Shop

Geoff was incredibly helpful to me from the very start. I recommend him to anyone seeking a trained hand at instrument repair. From inception to completion Geoff kept me updated on the process of repairing my guitar as well as useful care guidance. He is a master who values his work!

I’ve been taking my guitars to Geoff for the last year. He’s honest, incredibly knowledgable, and has to be one of the best if not the best guitar techs in Chicago. I used to take my guitars to Third Coast before a friend recommended Geoff to me. I’ve been burned a couple times by them, so I’m glad I found Geoff.

I am a professional guitar player and teacher and have been getting work done on my instruments for years in Chicago and other places I have lived (Kansas, Colorado, etc). I can safely say that Geoff is, without a doubt, the best guitar technician I have ever worked with and I trust his instincts and abilities implicitly. He has worked on my D’Angelico New Yorker, Hofner Jazzica, and Telecaster doing setups and electronic work. He also did an amazing glue repair on my wife’s uke and a set up that totally revitalized our very cool old Harmony parlor guitar — a guitar I now play more than I ever thought was possible. Beyond all of that, Geoff is extremely generous with his knowledge, totally fair with his prices, will always reconfigure things if the initial work is not to your satisfaction, will teach you how to keep your guitars working to their maximum potential, and thinks outside the box about music and the potential of each instrument. He truly is a rare find and Chicago is lucky to have him. And that, my fellow reviewers, always makes up for the extra effort to book your appointment and follow up to pick up your instrument.

One winter afternoon, I was just there in my apartment practicing my beautiful new Portuguese guitar, an ancient and beautiful instrument that captures the essence of Portuguese «saudade.» Playing sad European songs even in an amateur fashion was making me feel good about my life.
That is, until…
[Polar Vortex enters the room]: «AAAARRRRRRR! WHO DARES LIVE LIFE UNHINDERED BY MY SENSELESS WRATH?» [smacks my guitar with the back of his hand]
My guitar was cracked from the «prision» almost all the way up to the sound hole. It did not look good, but the guitar was still playable, so I carried on with a haltingly amateurish take on the classic «Ai, Mouraria,» mumbling Portuguese just softly enough for the mispronounced words to be muffled by my own beard before reaching earshot of all save one of my neighbors.
[Polar Vortex re-​enters the room]: «THRRREEEEAAAAHHHXXXXX! WHO BE FOOL ENOUGH TO THINK THEY COULD IGNORE ME THE FIRST TIME?» [smacks the back of my guitar with the front of his hand]
Now there was a crack on the back of my guitar, big enough to drop a pick into. It did not look good. «My Portuguese guitar is ruined!» I shrieked.
Well, the next day I asked around and got a few names for guitar repair experts. Geoff Benge picked up his phone on the first ring and told me I could bring my guitar on by later that afternoon.
When he saw my guitar, he shook his head in dismay. «This is not good. Do you understand why this is not good?» He patiently explained to me that the soundboard had started to shear horizontally, that I should have loosened the strings once the crack got bad, and expressed his general frustration that many guitarists (myself included, though he didn’t say that) didn’t realize the importance of a humidifier (it’s the dry air, not the cold, that cracks guitars). Then he explained how he was going to humidify my guitar in his «tent,» and explained in detail how he was going to repair the guitar. Somehow he explained all this without making me feel like an idiot, even though I had to just trust him because the likes of Jorma Kaukonen and Andrew Bird did. At the same time he seemed excited about the new challenges of repairing a different kind of guitar with an unfamiliar tuning mechanism, and a small sound hole that would require mirrors. He said it might take a few weeks, told me to check in with him in a week to check on his progress anyway. Given his illustrious client list, I didn’t expect him to turn it around too fast.
«It’s done,» he told me after my first call just a week later. As expected of a busy professional, he was juggling another commitment, but I was able to pick it up soon enough. When I got back to his shop, he patiently explained the repairs to me, adding that he had added some bracing perpendicular to the crack for additional support. He even had to ask me to remind him how much he charged me… and generally speaking the whole interaction felt more like a labor of love than a business transaction. It cost some money of course, but was surprisingly reasonable.
[Polar Vortex re-​enters the room]: «GGGRRRROOOKKKKK! YOU THINK THAT CAN STOP ME?» [smacks my guitar again] «AAAAAIIII!» [he shrieks, holding his hand and grimacing, then departs]
My guitar, now humidified and expertly repaired, was and is still intact.

Please know that this is a one man shop & generally to survive as such this individual does excellent work & has built a reputation amongst enough Chicago musicians that he can survive while competing against the larger — corporate institutions that offer similar services. I travel from the Beverly /​Morgan Park area up to Belmont & Sheffield because I have vintage Fender guitars & I don’t trust anyone else with them. He was recommended to me as the best Fender guy in the city and after 4 – 5 years of using him I believe it to be 100% true. I like to call him to see his turn around time before heading up because at times he does get busy. However, I would expect this from someone in this predicament. Rarely I find I want to eat a a restaurant with no line.

I have had lots of work done on many different guitars by Geoff.
He does incredible work. Everything from cutting a new nut, changing electronics, to fret work and full fret jobs. Every guitar has come back playing so fantastic.
He will tell you matter-​of-​factly what is up with the guitar and exactly how to fix it.
Some people don’t like to hear that so they may be unhappy with the service, that isn’t Geoff’s fault. He does exemplary work at fair prices and finishes the work when he says it will be done. What else do you want.

Geoff knows his guitars! And mine… He always has time to do the little jobs like adjust a neck, clean a volume pot or explain the natural buzz of a Strat. He is the only person I would ever let touch my Les Paul, and refret it for that matter. Rock on, brother!

Geoff has been in and around the scene for quite a while. I remember when he was running repairs for Chicago Music Exchange and then he had a shop on Damen. Recently reconnected with him through a local luthier: Koentopp Guitars to have some work done on 2 guitars of mine.
The CMI ES 335: Japanese made Lawsuit guitar. Bridge was ALL sorts of a mess, which Geoff reseated into with bigger studs and now she plays like a CHAMP! Cleaned up, recrowned and all is good.
48^th Street Custom Strat: New whammy bridge needed to be set-​up, fret recrown/​polish and all that. Since it was an eBay Special, there were some strange «Gold/​Sparkle» drips of, nail polish? Guitar plays great, but were still a few «gold flakes» (one of which he knocked off) and still found the other that I can take care of. Also, pickguard screws weren’t properly screwed in.
Geoff is a knowledgeable guy and does pretty good work. The CMI work was a hit, wish the 48^th didn’t have these little niggling issues like the gold sparkle not taken off as asked. You can expect an average fret crown/​polish/​setup to run around $ 70 plus the cost of strings.

Cannot say enough great things. Geoff got my jaguar — that had been abused from my own neglect over the years after getting other guitars– up and working great.
He made the first guitar I ever cared about playable again. Great work and fair pricing.

Look… if you want your somebody to tell you how awesome your expensive guitar from GC is, then you should probably go somewhere else.
If you want top notch customer service with good communication and work delivered on time every time you should probably go somewhere else.
BUT, if you want a guy that will tell you what you may not want to hear in the interest of getting your guitar to sound its best, will bend over backwards to accommodate you in an emergency situation, will educate you every time you walk in the door, and most importantly will do the best quality work in the city of chicago for very reasonable prices, then there’s only one place to go… Geoff Benge.
I can easily see why people give him bad reviews… he IS the popular kid in high-​school in the fact that everybody wants him. he’s very busy so that’s why he doesn’t drop everything when you walk in to greet you and make you feel at home. That’s why he doesn’t give a hoot if you take offense to him criticizing your guitar. Unfortunately it’s also why things don’t get done on time.
This business is not one where you can just hire more people to help with the load… you need experience and skill and there’s only so much he and his assistants can do. Sure they could be better communicators/​customer service friendly but I’d rather they spend their time honing their guitar skills.
The way I look at it, it all comes down to this.
Good, Fast, Cheap
Pick two.
I’ll pick good and cheap and pick Geoff Benge every time.

I asked on some guitar forums for a recommendation of a good guitar shop guy in Chicago and Geoff came up. I called him for a quote on a setup and some electric work.
I come in to the shop and the first thing he does is criticize my guitar, «oh these are bad! None of them are good. Gibson made a bad run on all these marked with 1960… etc». After he’s done criticizing it, he quotes me a price for the setup and offers doing a better job (filing the frets for twice the amount, I know it takes time). Since I just got the guitar, and I like playing guitars that are setup well, I give it to him. He said, «come back a week from today and it will be ready».
I had read a review here before dropping off the guitar that alluded to his poor «on-​time» performance, so I called him two days before it was supposed to be due. Not to my surprise, he said, «oh I don’t know when the parts will come in, i just ordered them yesterday» — keep in mind I dropped off the guitar last week! So he said he couldn’t guarantee the guitar would be ready. I needed the guitar exactly that day, and when I spoke with him in person he gave me his word, and even said, «I’ll mark down a day earlier in this sheet so it’s ready by then».
After having called him and asked him for the guitar on time, I go to his shop the day he promised the guitar and my guitar is setup well (I think he did a good job with the setup), however, the guitar has horrible scratches and it’s not even clean! I mean, not even dusted off, it doesn’t look good at all. The frets are scratched from when he filed the frets. He definitely did not use masking tape to protect t he frets. The body has deep scratches. when I brought the guitar in, it was in pristine condition. When I picked it up it looked terrible.
In summary, the guy might do good work, but treats the guitars and customers poorly, does a sloppy job, does not have good business skills, and you have to be on top of him to make sure the job is done on time. I would not trust this guy with any of my other guitars. Look for someone else to fix your expensive guitars OR stay there and supervise all the work he does so it’s done correctly.

I needed a new ‘nut’ on my ’63 Fender Duo-​Sonic and Geoff came highly recommended from some very reliable (and famous) players. I also decided to swap out an old pickup and get some other minor work done. He also recommended some fretwork, which I agreed to. A week later, Geoff called me to let me know the work was complete.
Everything was done perfectly, the new pickups matched my vintage guitar perfectly (despite being new) and my guitar sounds the best it’s ever sounded in the 25 years I’ve owned it.
My only ‘complaint’ was when I picked it up, Geoff plugged it into an under-​the-​dash amp and ripped off a few leads that made my mediocre playing seem woefully inadequate. ;). I’m strictly rhythm, man.
He has some great ‘homemade’ Lucite guitars for sale as well.

It scares me a bit to write a positive review, lest it bring in even more business, and make me have to wait longer for work to get done, but let’s face it — Geoff Benge is a magician. He’s worked on at least a half dozen guitars that I regularly play, and has brought two seemingly unsalvageable guitars back to my rotation. His prices are more than fair, and though perhaps I’ve always been lucky, I’ve never had to wait any longer than reasonable for the quality of work that he puts into my guitars.
Ultimately, while it may seem from other reviews that sometimes he doesn’t care about you (a problem I’ve never personally had), it is obvious that he cares about your guitar.

I had an initially negative experience, but the owner made a considerable effort to rectify the situation.

A lot of Benge for the buck…
Geoff’s small scale guitar shop means you’ll get a local, trustworthy repair without the hassle of dealing with a Big Box guitar store.
I recently took my tweed Fender Blues Jr. amp to Geoff to have it fixed. As a performing musician, I explained that I really needed the amp back in a week for a gig. Geoff made no guarantees, but offered to loan me out his Fender Blues Jr., just in case my amp was not serviced and repaired in that time frame.
A week later, with 2 whole days to spare for the gig the amp was fixed and working in fine form. I felt like the pricing was fair for the speed in which the amp was fixed.
Great service, fair pricing, no b.s.

I dig it, man. It’s true: Geoff is a master, and he has a solid apprentice in Charlie, who seems welded to his craft even as he gives you the low-​down on any number of music subjects. I trust these guys, even though I’ve only had some minor needs. I’ll be returning because the service is top notch and they care.
One note: the store is small. If you have valued equipment, make sure it’s kept out of the way of any traffic areas. I saw a dude put a Cello on the floor and I worried about it.

Pretty late about this review.
had a guitar that needed to be set up and the intonation was off as well. came to geoff.
set up was priced fairly at about 40 dollars.
to get the intonation right he had to adjust the saddle and move it on the bridge. i also requested to put a bone nut and saddle in.
all this took about a week but it was a great job at a fair price.

It seems like night or day at Geoff Benge’s place. You can put me down in the «night» column as my experience reflects «BenoitTro» and «Dave K.» almost exactly. I couldn’t have said it better than «Do you remember that feeling in High School?»
I live near 5000 W. Belmont so any guitar shop i go to is going to be a chore (and i HATE driving east in the city, why are they all on Lincoln?). I made sure to do a bunch of research on places before picking one because A) the previously mentioned distance & B) I had a very rare archtop from 1954 that needed a neck reset.
I was ready to lay out the cash because this guitar was beautiful and Geoff had good reviews on some other site (i can’t remember where). I called him beforehand because i know musicians and those that work on instrument have pliable hours and i didn’t want to burn an hour of my day showing up with no one there. Once i finally did catch him on the phone i took my guitar in, he wasn’t there so i left it with someone else and they took down my info. A week later he called and walked me through all the stuff he was going to do, i agreed to what needed to be done, and he warned me it could get messy. I was ok with that. He also said it would be a week or two before he could get started. I was ok with that too.
3 weeks go by, no call. I decide to check in. «Oh i haven’t gotten to it yet. Check next week.» Fine. Another week. «Oh i’ve been _​_​_​_​_​_​_​». Ok. Rinse and repeat. Stopped by a few times when i was nearby: closed. I think 5 or 6 weeks later he finally calls with the work done. «Man. I had some problems with it.» I’m still fine with it. As it turns out, it was a difficult reset and some of the wood was damaged around the heel and he felt bad about it. That still didn’t bother me. He did a decent repair on the damaged wood and the neck was indeed reset. I am mostly bothered by the lack of progress and having me «check back next _​_​_​_​_​».
I go in to get the guitar. There are probably 4 guys in there. I can’t tell if they work there or are just hanging out. Keep in mind, i have never met Geoff because he was never there when i stopped by originally, or subsequently. Since he called me to come get the guitar i came in and said «Are you Geoff? I’m Jef Lastname.» What followed was some bizarre Abbot and Costello «Who’s On First» with some serious attitude out of nowhere. After that surreal exchange i figured out who Geoff was, and got to finally get my guitar back.
He did an OK job but i will never truly know if he screwed up or not since there was only one chance to do it. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was a tough job and he did try to make up for it by repairing some minor cracks that he found and explained why it was so difficult. I believed him. At the end of the day i had a great playing guitar with minor damage but i just couldn’t get over the awesome guy attitude, weeks of waiting, having to call, and weird elite clubhouse vibe in the shop.

I just opened an Unilocal account, hopefully so Geoff thinks I’m not Dave K., the guy who gave his shop one star, since I’m also a Dave K.
I just dropped off my busted distortion pedal a few days ago and I’m supposed to pick it up today, so I’m not totally sure how I feel about his service, but if it works than that’s that. I’m down with the set up of the shop though, his work is not in the back, it’s right up front so everybody can see. I also like the show posters up on walls.
Overall, I’m going to respect anybody who has their own business and makes it work as hard as they can, and this guy seems cool.

Does anyone remember High School and that feeling of dread whenever you were around the «cool» people? Remember, the ones that would snidely comment on anything you had to say or did?
Well, we ain’t in High School no more Brother, AND we don’t have to deal with jerks like Geoff. Some people, I suspect, no actually I know, can be absolutely unpleasant, uninviting and just plain rude because they are masterful at something. Geoff’s work is average at best, costly compared to others and personally, I never trusted the guy. The two week job ended up taking nearly eight weeks and had I not called and/​or stopped in I would have had no idea where we were or weren’t. The work was completed and I will never return. I would strongly suggest referrals from people you know and trust, get to know your repairperson and, if possible, prior to any work commencing («like at the see-​ment pond Uncle Jed»)
I was loath to deal with him after a previous bad experience at Chicago Music Exchange (where he used to work, go figure!), when he tried to wheedle me into a costly adjustment of an acoustic guitar that was not warranted under any circumstance. Anyway, and long story short, a few months ago I was able to purchase a very valuable vintage guitar at 70% of market value due to it needing some electronic work. I consulted with a few other repair facilities and even tried to take it to one but, alas, after waiting 45 minutes past when they were supposed to open I gave up and called a well-​known Chicago vintage expert and shop owner I know quite well. Mr. Vintage (who, by the way, employs his own repair guy) flatly told me that Geoff is the only guy he would trust the job to and to disregard the fact that he is an A-​Hole.
Look, the bottom line here is that it’s extremely difficult to find quality guitar repair/​set-​up in Chicago. If you’re lucky enough to, please post here and be sure to let everyone know.