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It’s a Tuesday afternoon and Ricardo Chavarria sits next to Rick Oldham at a repair desk in Musician’s Repair and Sales in downtown Indianapolis, watching Oldham’s every move. 

He imitates the maneuvers on the instrument he is repairing and asks questions along the way.

A year ago, Chavarria worked as an assistant manager at Taco Bell. When the pandemic started, he began to re-evaluate his life. He came across a job posting for an instrument repair technician in the classifieds. In June, he started working at Musician’s Repair and Sales.

“I’m literally making a living doing what I love,” Chavarria said. 

For Oldham, seeing Ricardo learn to repair instruments brings him back to his own childhood. He grew up in the store, which his dad, Maury, founded in 1948. Now, Rick and his own son, Dan, run the store. 

Maury, now 95 years old, visits on the occasional Wednesday. He still has his own desk in the repair shop.

The store is a staple in the Indy music community, from students in middle school bands to professional musicians in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

No matter the circumstance, they can walk through the door and be greeted by a technician they know and trust.

The pandemic momentarily changed that. When the pandemic began, schools shut down. The store services instruments for students and school band programs in the area, which accounts for a large portion of the business. 

"I was surprised at how quick the pandemic made a difference in this business. Kids weren't playing in school. We weren't going to the 60 schools we go to a week," Rick said.

The store shut down, but the Oldhams came in to work on improving a new avenue of sales: the internet.

“We were delivering to doorsteps. We were doing anything we could do to keep things going,” Rick said. 

After six weeks, the staff was allowed to return, but business was slow. Local customers weren't bringing in instruments for repair, so the staff began repairing instruments owned by the store to be sold on the internet and in the showroom when foot traffic returned. The task allowed the Oldhams to continue paying their employees through the pandemic closure and keep up with online competition.

"I constantly battle Amazon.com," Dan said.

But sales aren't the only focus of their online presence. Their website allows visitors to connect with a music teacher, find resources about local music groups, and read educational articles about instrument care.

The store has reopened, and online sales have continued. The Oldhams have even hired a photographer to take high-quality photos of the instruments and help manage the online inventory.

According to the Oldhams, the market for beginning musical instruments is shifting away from repair, but professional musicians still want to fix what they own rather than replace it.

Rick sees it as the driving success of the store as many family-owned businesses fade away.

“Seventy-three years of business is a long time ... People drive from counties away and sometimes neighboring states to get here and have us repair their instrument because they want to make sure it’s done right.” 

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At Lucibello’s Italian Pastry Shop in downtown New Haven, preparing cakes for customers went like clockwork. 

The order sheet was taken down from the wall, a cake was baked and iced, and then placed into a box neatly tied shut with string before going into the refrigerator to wait for pickup. 

But on this Saturday morning, one cake needed extra attention.

“It needs to say ‘Congratulations on passing your driver’s test,’” Isabella Scirocco, a Lucibello’s employee, told Peter Faggio.

It was Faggio’s job to fit all of those words in icing onto the little open space remaining on top of the cake.

I wandered stressfully over to the counter where the precise operation would take place, unsure of how anyone could fit that many words on top of a small cake.

Faggio didn’t hesitate to neatly and beautifully script the congratulatory note in pink icing, and none of the other employees even looked up from their duties.

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

“When you have been doing it as long as I have…” Faggio trailed off with a laugh after seeing my reaction.

Peter is a second-generation owner of the Lucibello’s. The pastry shop originally opened in 1929, and Peter’s father, Frank Faggio, purchased it in 1959 after growing up working in the business.