In the 26 years we've been at our University Avenue home, Ifshin Violins has grown from a small local violin shop with just a few employees to one of the most well known firms of its kind. Even though we renovated in 1993 and enlarged our building to over 4,000 square feet, it became clear that our home was becoming too small. If you have been to our shop on a busy day, especially a Saturday, you can certainly understand. The only option was to find a larger location. A few years ago, Mr. Ifshin started looking for a suitable building, both in Berkeley and in the surrounding cities. Finding a building in the Bay Area isn't easy, but about two years ago he found the perfect location three miles north in El Cerrito on Fairmount Avenue, adjacent to the newly renovated El Cerrito Plaza and only a block from the BART station. It was built by the phone company in 1975 and has just about everything we need. A deal was made and an architect, Claudia Falconer, was hired. Tony McCarthy began construction on our new home. The work is now finished, and we have:

• About 13,500 square feet of space (compared to 4,000 now)
• Five rooms for our customers to try out instruments and bows (we currently only have three)
• A recital hall
• 30 off-street parking spaces
• A much larger and more comfortable sales and display area
• An expanded instrument rental department
• Easy access by car and public transportation
• Vastly expanded storage
• Plenty of nearby shops and restaurants at El Cerrito Plaza
• A high security walk-in safe area for our collection of fine instruments and bows

The new address is 6420 Fairmount Avenue. See you there soon!