Guitar Center is dropping its unofficial in-store ban on playing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” a favorite of novice players, as part of chief executive Gabe Dalporto’s broader effort to remake the once-bankrupt instrument retailer around brick-and-mortar stores, deep inventory, and a stronger sense of community.

For many musicians, an instrument is a physical extension of themselves — a connection that does not always lend itself to the online shopping experience. “Selecting a musical instrument is a deeply, deeply personal experience,” Dalporto said. It is something shoppers have to touch, hear, and even smell for themselves; a guitar that seems appealing on a website may not speak to a player trying it out in real life.

Dalporto, 56, a nuclear engineer by training and a bona fide music nerd, is a true believer in physical retail, and he has made stores a pillar of his turnaround of Guitar Center. The company is wagering big on customers’ desire for an in-person shopping experience, where newbie and veteran musicians alike can tinker with instruments and tap into employees’ know-how.

Guitar Center’s comeback is still a work in progress, but Dalporto wants the retailer to offer the vast inventory of a big-box store while fostering the sense of community usually reserved for independent music shops. “The No. 1 thing I get from independents is that they personally know their customers,” he said, “and that’s what I want us to get to.”

A bet on beginners

Guitar Center is only now recovering from what has been an epic, six-year COVID hangover.

During the pandemic, millions of Americans took up new hobbies to pass the time: some baked sourdough loaves, others picked up the ukulele or guitar. A surge in online sales became a lifeline for Guitar Center as lockdowns shuttered its stores. Digital sales doubled in 2020 but remained a small percentage of the business.

To keep up with the wave of new hobbyists, Guitar Center made an ill-advised move: it doubled down on inexpensive instruments that appealed to beginners at the expense of its core customer, the more serious musician. When sales came back down to earth, the company found itself with the wrong merchandise on hand — a problem that was hard to remedy as Chinese factory shutdowns caused supply chain chaos.

“Because of all the beginners moving into the market, it just really got us out of position on our inventory, and it took us a long time to get back,” Dalporto said.

The pressure compounded Guitar Center’s other burdens. On top of store closures and unsold inventory, the company was choking on enormous debt from a private equity buyout in 2014. The music nearly stopped in late 2020, when Guitar Center sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The pivot back to serious players

Even after Guitar Center emerged from bankruptcy protection with a smaller debt load, it struggled to find its place in the market. Sweetwater, an online musical instrument retailer, had swept in to steal market share among more serious musicians, while mass retailers such as Walmart were attracting entry-level guitarists.

It was clear to Dalporto — who served on the board during the bankruptcy reorganization and became CEO in 2023 — that the company had to refocus its efforts on the guitar aficionado. Nine out of 10 beginner guitarists are no longer playing one year after picking up the instrument, so catering to newcomers meant a lot of churn, Dalporto said. The retailer had to constantly hunt for new customers, and even when it found them, they were typically buying from its inventory of cheap guitars, which Dalporto concluded was taking up too much space in stores. “A beginner doesn’t need 200 guitar choices,” he quipped. Dalporto’s most-prized guitar is a 1964 Fender Stratocaster, a gift from his father.

During COVID, roughly 75% of Guitar Center’s assortment was aimed at beginners, while 25% was dedicated to the serious musician. Those percentages have now been reversed. The reversal is the direct corrective to the mispositioning Dalporto described: shelf space is now aimed at the customers most likely to keep playing.

The strategy has helped Guitar Center get back on track: the company has reported 10 straight quarters of sales growth. It generated $2.6 billion in annual revenue in 2025, up 4% from 2024 — a notable rebound for a chain that sought Chapter 11 protection in late 2020. In recent years, the business has also benefited from factors outside the company’s control, such as a country music resurgence boosting acoustic guitar sales and Taylor Swift inspiring more young women to take up the instrument.

At the same time, overall guitar sales have been in a slight but years-long decline, so growth has to come at rivals’ expense. Under Dalporto, Guitar Center has leaned into relatively new, faster categories like DJ equipment, keyboards, drums, and recording studio gear. It is also strengthening its second-hand guitar business.

The local-store playbook

There are parallels between Guitar Center and two other big-box chains looking to protect their turf from online competitors: Best Buy in electronics and Barnes & Noble in books. All three are aiming to make their chains more like local mom-and-pop stores.

“If all you have is Amazon, you have no local music gear community, and that’s really what we have to be,” Dalporto said.

Dalporto says he sees James Daunt’s vaunted revitalization of Barnes & Noble as a model to replicate, and he finds inspiration from independents like the Chicago Music Exchange, which he admires for its selection, sense of community, and high level of service.

To capture some of that essence, Guitar Center is working to make its stores a place to hang out for novices and professionals alike. It is launching open mic nights for local musicians and recently held a national “Drum Off” competition in which 2,600 drummers performed across its stores. It also dropped its unofficial in-store ban on playing “Stairway to Heaven,” a favorite of beginners, to foster a more welcoming environment. It is a small gesture, but one aimed at the heart of the turnaround: convincing musicians that Guitar Center can feel less like a big-box store and more like the independents Dalporto admires.

Guitar Center wants its staff to match customers’ enthusiasm for music, whatever their skill level.

“I want to be able to profitably put more labor in the stores,” Dalporto said. “Over time, we are going to be able to deliver a much better customer experience and that will drive additional revenue.” How the company absorbs that added labor cost while extending its streak of sales growth — in a guitar market that continues to shrink — is the test of whether the store-first playbook can hold.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.