60 BEST OF MONTEREY COUNTY® 2024 montereycountynow.com/bestof store and not leave as a crafter. How can you resist the aisles upon aisles of fabrics, paints, easels, yarn, picture frames and more? Around Halloween, pick up a foam pumpkin to carve and enjoy for more than just one season. You’ll also find plenty of gift ideas for any holiday. Maybe you need to spruce up your home, or add a little color to your barren desk at work. Get crafting. Best Store For Musical Instruments Wise Music 1430 S. Main St., Salinas (831) 424-7885, wisemusicstore.com Ever since someone was in the kitchen with Dinah, strummin’ on the old banjo, former musician Pete Wise has been...OK, so he opened the store in 1994 after finishing a 12-year stint at Grove Music in Santa Cruz. Wise Music has more than banjos. There are fiddles, jugs and every other sort of musical instrument. Pair that with lessons, repairs, band insturment rentals and sheet music and a theme park of all things musical emerges. So it’s also the best store for a singin’, pickin’ and grinnin’ cowboy. Best Place To Buy Vinyl Recycled Records 604 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey (831) 375-5454, recycledrecordsmonterey. com “The more things change, the more they remain the same,” or so the cliché goes, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent resurgence of vinyl in the music playback universe. Lucas McCain, TV’s The Rifleman was fond of saying, “I ain’t gonna fight you or anybody else,” and like him, the folks at this store haven’t fought the trends in their industry, choosing instead to embrace the waves of change from vinyl to cassettes to CDs and now back again, buying, selling, and trading new and used versions of all of the above. Best Furniture Store Mum’s Place 246 Forest Ave., Pacific Grove (831) 372-6250, mumsfurniture.com A house is not truly a home until it is furnished with a personal touch, like a mantel clock or a settee. Mum’s Place gets that. With more than 50 furniture brands on its showroom floor, Mum’s Place has plenty to offer for your living room, dining room, bedroom and office, from floor to ceiling. Since it was founded in 1986 in Pacific Grove by Mugo and Talin Tersakyan, Mum’s Place has grown from 700 square feet to its current 10,000 square feet of furniture heaven. Best Dive Shop Aquarius Dive Shop 2040 Del Monte Ave., Monterey (831) 375-1933, aquariusdivers.com Since 1970, Aquarius has been giving divers lessons, selling and renting diving gear and staying at the tip of the spear on the best in new diving technology. The best part, Aquarius is a nexus of a community of divers who thrive in the protected waters of Monterey Bay. They offer open-water guided group and private tours, they have a dive club that meets for day and night dives, and they offer classes for newbies in a heated pool. They even host guided diving excursions to international destinations like the Galapagos Islands. Best Toy Store Thinker Toys Seventh Avenue at San Carlos Street, Carmel (831) 624-0441, thinkertoys.com Toys in the Old West were pretty standard—dolls, building blocks and marbles, the usual stuff. They were generally things to keep your kids occupied for the day while you milked the cows, sheared the sheep and took care of other chores on the ranch. Toys have certainly evolved since then—look no further than Thinker Toys. There are numerous puzzles, Lego sets, kid-friendly musical instruments, science experiments and more. Your kids will be having so much fun that they won’t even know they’re learning. Best Bike Shop Work Horse Bicycles 486 Washington St., Monterey (831) 375-2144, workhorsebicycles.com If Hollywood is to be believed, Butch Cassidy was as skilled riding two wheels as he was riding four hooves. So if your 1890 Rambler breaks down, Work Horse Bicycles can mend it—or better yet, get you a more modern set of wheels. They even have “Horse” in the name, so you can be sure they’re the ones to fix up your trusty steed. They’ve got a great selection, from brand new top-of-the line carbon fiber racehorses to the gently pre-loved ones looking for a new home. Like to ride the rugged Pecos? They have a bike for that. Teaching a toddler? That, too. Looking for one of them newfangled hybrids? Darn tootin’. Best Surf Shop On the Beach Surf Shop 693 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey (831) 646-9283, onthebeachsurfshop.com When you think of representations of the Wild West, they mostly feature wide-open plains, no saltwater for miles. But beyond all that land, the natural next frontier is in the ocean. While the history of surfing dates back centuries in Polynesia, its origin in California was not long after the 49ers’ gold rush: three brothers from Hawaii reportedly surfed in Santa Cruz in 1885, striking liquid gold. These days, there’s no better place in Monterey County than On the Beach Surf Shop to get the insights and tools and apparel you need to have fun (comfortably and safely) on the waves. For close to 40 years, this locally owned shop has been outfitting surfers (and boogie boarders, bodyboarders, etc.) with boards, wetsuits, apparel and more. Best Golf Shop Golf Mart 2040 Fremont Blvd., Seaside (831) 583-1000, stores.worldwidegolf.com Perhaps the first golf course in the far West was a three-hole layout on the Oregon coast. Gearhart Golf Links opened in 1892. Del Monte Golf Course, right here in Monterey, dates to 1897 and is the oldest continuous Best Boutique Fitness Studio | Fuel Cycling
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