Menzel Violins

This place is the gem. No one has the honest approach in a violin shopping industry except this talented and dedicated owner. She was desperately trying to find the best sounding violin regardless of the price. We spent there more than 2 hours trying to play many violins from different price ranges and found just one that perfectly matched our criteria. And surprise! We saved thousands dollars just because we were lucky enough to visit this store. Don't MISS your opportunity! Highly recommended!

I am giving Mo Violins a 5 out of 5 for every aspect of her establishment. If I could give a 10 out of 10 I would. First, she is a very honest business owner and her prices are most reasonable. She is not trying to price gouge in this very "expensive" market. Her ethics and capabilities are beyond compare. She will not only sell you a great violin or other instrument, she is present for you when you come upon a question or need an adjustment about your instrument.

After buying a violin from her, months later I realized I had used a very damaging rosin that I purchased online. She patiently cleaned my bow, using expertise and tenderness, for as long as she needed to fix the bow and make my violin sing again. Her standards are very high and Mo is extremely motivated to make you a satisfied and happy customer. I would not go anywhere else to purchase a violin or other instrument. I would even go out of state to get to her.

Excellent. Mo spends the time to know exactly what you're looking for. Not only is she tremendously helpful, but she is personable and fun to work with. I left Menzel Violins with everything I needed to start playing and it was under my budget. I'm so excited to learn to fiddle!

Menzel Violins is an amazing place. From the decor to the service provided, everything was top notch and a great experience. Our host was extremely nice, presented me with multiple options within my price range to choose from, gave us a great deal, and I ended up walking out of the store with a violin I was happy with. Would definitely recommend anyone looking for a good instrument to check out!

First of all the store is just beautiful and just very pleasant to be in, but more importantly Mo was awesome! I went in looking to upgrade from my beginner violin to a more advanced one and she literally spent over an hour and a half with me choosing and playing almost every violin in the store. Just a great experience and the store has a lot of great inventory at every price point. Highly, highly recommend. Thanks Mo!

Went in today without an appointment (note: be sure to call ahead!) and was immediately helped with the task of finding a new viola bow. Owner was very honest and upfront about pricing, and remaining within my budget, and while recommendations were made to upgrade my viola, they also respected that I was only presently interested in a new bow. I'm recently getting back into playing and I'll definitely be making the drive up again for future services and purchases.

The place was absolutely stunning from the moment I walked in. Mo instantly helped me with replacing a cello string and even tuned the cello fully! It was amazing to have someone help me out during such a stressful time. She is a natural when it comes to connecting with her customers. The service she provided me with is like no other. There is no place I would rather go!

I hope I get an excuse to go back soon! Highly highly recommend her! Amazing, took her time and made sure I was satisfied before I left. She also gave me some great advice for playing and making it through music school. Thank you Mo!

Phenomenal service, instruments, atmosphere, everything! Highly recommended. Mo's shop is the best and most trustworthy I've ever seen. I've gotten four violins, cases, and bows, and lots of other musical odds and ends and they are all of the best quality! Very interactive experience, you get to hear about where the instrument came from, how old it is, and you could probably test every instrument in the shop, if that's what it took to find the right one.

I am very pleased with the service and value at Menzel. Mo is very knowledgeable about instruments--and doesn't try to sell you things you don't need. When I asked for my bow to be rehaired, she said it didn't need rehairing. She was phenomenally helpful on other matters. Great prices.

I started taking cello lessons 6 months ago (my first time taking any type of musical instrument lessons) and I loved it - wish I had started when I was younger. I wanted to stop renting and buy myself a good quality cello, so I did my research and based on her terrific reviews, decided to check out Menzel Violins. Mo was great! She was so patient and helpful.

She spent a lot of time working with me and I got a fantastic cello, at a terrific price! My cello teacher was very impressed with both the quality of the cello and the price. After selecting my cello, Mo then spent a considerable amount of time helping me to select a bow. Who knew that the right bow would make so much difference and that finding the right bow would take so much time. Mo made the entire process a terrific experience. I am extremely happy with my new cello and bow. I would have no hesitation recommending Menzel Violins and Mo to anyone. Thanks again Mo!

I really enjoy this shop. The owner is incredibly knowledgeable and as a professional session player and small time luthier I agree whole heartedly with the basic concept. Don't get crappy Chinese instruments. I personally don't care how your teacher feels about them or how much they are getting kicked back from other shops. Think about it this way.

If you were a kid who wanted to learn an instrument. Would you want an instrument a little above your level so you can continue to be inspired and become the best musician you can be? Or would you like something that looks nice, sounds terrible and cracks as soon as it starts getting dry out. Repairs are clean, fast and consistent and apparently they do lessons too. What else do you really need from a shop NJ?

There is a wide selection of stringed instruments from violin, to violas, and cellos. The store is definitely violin heavy, with about 80% violin and then 15% viola and then 5% cello. I don't know if what's in the store is everything she has in inventory, or if there is an inventory location, but that is my estimate of breakdown based on the store.

The store seems to have instruments ranging from student, up to $8000 (and probably more) pieces. There are visual pieces that are not the traditional colored violins, to very traditional and even used instruments. My review is based on three visits to the store, to purchase a viola, violin, and a bo. The owner is the one that will directly discuss and work with you.

This isn't a big shop of five or six sales rep and you get luck of the draw. Either you're going to like Mo, or you're not. She will ask you your budget, as the instruments are so varied in price, no real need showing you a $6000 piece, if your budget is $1000. Within our price range, she had a lot of selections on the violin. She will bring a few out for you to try, and then by elimination you take out the ones you do not like.

Then some more will get added in, and the process can take a while. She's not there to upsell (at least did not with us) and get you into the next price range. She actually put in a few that were far below our budget, but they just didn't take the cut. Overall, we felt she was fun to speak with, and we felt comfortable with what she was saying and it didn't sound phoney.

As for some who think that Chinese instruments are "just as good." That is true, you can find some reputable dealers, and Chinese can make instruments. Just look at classical and vintage erhu. They last forever as well. Unfortunately, the mass producted and bad ones outnumber the good ones, so it's tough to sell a product you can not guarantee or trust.

My daughter's previous instrument was a Chinese violin, and it was good, but the tone and sound has changed so much over the years, that it just did not hold up. Did it fall apart? No, but it does not hold up well over time. Is any store perfect all the time? Probably very few. You can catch any store at the wrong day and the wrong time. Things happen.

We were referred to Menzel by my daughters' musical teacher, and from the first visit, it was so different from our past experiences with their previous instrument purchases. Mo Menzel is so friendly, almost overly friendly at times, but very professional and courteous.

Absolutely fantastic experience. Let me preface this by saying I have no experience with violins, violin shopping, or anything of the sort. That being said, I know it can be a very shady industry, so when I went off to buy a violin for my girlfriend I did my research and came across Menzel. Extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. I wish every shopping experience were like this.

This shop is so beautiful - when you walk in, you might immediately think you're going to be dropping a lot of money. But then you'd be wrong. The prices here can't be beat. The selection for violins is, as far as I can tell, extensive - and all of them are high quality. No synthetic material, Chinese violins here that you'd find online or in other stores.

The bottom line for me - after budgeting to buy just a violin, my girlfriend and I left with a violin, bow, case, shoulder rest, and bow rosin. All for under my initial budget that was meant for just the violin. We had fun during the selection process, and we walked out with smiles and a beautiful instrument. I think that's really all that needs to be said.

I have been going here since I started play ing in the 80's. Even though I now live inMD, I came back here because I knew I would be very well taken care of and I was not disappointed. She turned my decades old violin into a superstar. Never tried to make me buy the most expensive option and was never pushy. Best violin shop ever!

This is THE place. I live in Staten Island and didn't want to be taken advantage of by expensive luthiers in the city, so one Saturday morning I took a chance and drove an hour out to Livingston to Menzel Violins. I was immediately blown away by the aesthetic of this store, it is a dignified and beautiful monument to string instruments. I am in my late 20's and haven't picked up a violin in 10 years, and was a bit overwhelmed, but the owner of this store made me feel comfortable and excited about the idea of playing again.

I told her that I am a classically trained musician. She asked me what my cultural background was, which at first I thought was a strange question. I told her: Irish and Italian. As if blessed by ESP, she insisted that I play Irish tunes instead of classical. As it turned out, this was exactly my ambition. I have always wanted to be an Irish fiddler.

She plucked from the shelf the most beautiful instrument I have ever seen or heard, a violin with a deep, dark and mellow sound and the color of Guinness. I felt like Harry Potter going to pick out his wand for Hogwarts. Two months later, I'm belting out Irish tunes and completely in love with my beautiful handmade German fiddle. Look no further.

This is the store. Ignore what some other yelpers have said about the owner being a bit "gruff". it's called heart! And part of what made my experience so great at Menzel's. I will be back!

This is a beautifully appointed shop and the proprietor is attentive and personable. She seems sincere and to want to help her customers as much as possible. The shop appears to have a decent selection of student and intermediate-level instruments and bows (I can't speak for their inventory at the higher end). However, I would recommend taking some of the owner's claims with a grain of salt.

One of her claims is that she's the "only honest dealer" around, implying that the vast majority of string instrument dealers in the NYC area are crooks. They are not. I have no doubt that Menzel's is an honest dealer, but so are the vast majority of others. I am not a dealer - just a player who has been to many shops (in cities in several parts of the country) over the years.

The other claim she makes (on her website and as soon as you walk in to try out any merchandise) is that Chinese instruments are inherently lacking in value. This is simply untrue. Chinese violin makers run the gamut from factories producing cheap junk to Violin Society of America gold medal winners. Menzel's has every right not to stock certain instruments, and to make the case that their instruments are superior, but it is not true that all Chinese instruments are inferior to European ones. Do some research before taking the owner's word on this.

What a beautiful store with a knowledgeable owner who educated me and my son about violins and the scams that are out there. My son's violin instructor had told us to go to a store where he could try out different violins so he could make his own choice and bond with his instrument. I had originally called another violin store in Rahway (where my son's school gets their rentals from) to make an appointment to try out violins but they didn't have any full-sized violins in stock which surprised me.

How do you operate a violin business and not have violins in stock?! So I asked my son's private instructor for a recommendation and he suggested Menzel's in Livingston. We tried to schedule to go when it wouldn't be busy and ended up picking a perfect time so that my son got individualized attention. He was able to try out multiple violins of various price ranges and based his decision on the sound.

He compared and narrowed down until he found the one he loved. Then he picked out a bow and case. It was very reasonably priced and he loves his violin so much that he was only supposed to practice 20 minutes and right now, is going on one hour, looking up songs on the Internet to play. We are very happy customers and highly recommend this place.

We found our way to Menzel's after getting swizzled on a violin rental through a different business. You'd be silly to rent a violin when you can go to Menzels and get a great starter violin set for half the price of the rental. When a string broke on the violin, it was easy to just drop in and Mo replaced the string immediately - no appointment needed, no waiting.

We were ready to upgrade to a full sized violin and I was really impressed with the Mo's knowledge and technique playing various instruments so we could hear the sounds and then having my daughter play them to see how they feel and to test different bows. She instructed my daughter in playing different measures like a violin teacher. We purchased a beautiful European-made instrument with case and bow for the same amount it would have cost me to buy the (non-european made) rental violin. Mo threw in a couple of books of music and my daughter lost herself learning how to play "hobo music" (fiddle / bluegrass) and found an added love of the instrument upon discovering the fun side of a violin. Menzel's can cater to a range of budgets between the starter sets and a very wide range of European made instruments.

I walked into this little shop in Livingston and was surprised to see such a huge selection of violins. I had been to other shops, but they're selection did not compare to Menzel Violins. Mo, the owner, and her co workers were very knowledgeable and they helped me pick out the perfect violin. Mo was very tentative and spent 3 hours to make sure I chose the perfect violin that matched the style of music I play. How does anyone acquire so much patience! Her advise made me feel confident that I purchased the perfect instrument.

This review is based on my experience with the female owner who sold me a viola bow about five years ago. She clearly did not know what she was talking about and clearly did not play an instrument. In fact it was comical watching her try to show me the performance of the bow as she squeaked out Mary had a Little Lamb on a violin since she didn't want me to try out the bow too much. I was desperate so I still bought the bow from her. I liked the store when her father owned it.

We've purchased from Mo several times over the last four years with two boys who are playing violin, one in college and one in middle school now. This is the only place that I will go to. If you can handle brutal honesty, you come here. She will tell you what it is and not try to sell you some junk for way more than you should pay for junk. Be ready for an education though.

If you are too proud to be lectured to about violin build and quality, the violin sales scams out there, then this is not the place for you. She knows her stuff. We have spent over $5000 on violins and bows from her and do not regret our purchases one bit. The store is beautiful and Mo will find the right instrument for you at the right time in your development.

You will never overpay. Also, when you are ready to upgrade your instrument and have kept the original Mo Violin in good condition, you can upgrade and get your original price toward the upgrade. It's very fair! This is a real review coming from a real purchaser, not somebody like Jen who just stepped in the door and got her feathers ruffled. It's really unfair to the shop.

We visited this store today with our daughter. We were prepared to make a significant purchase and ask questions regarding upcoming maintnance etc. The proprietor was on the phone when we walked in. Although she did not acknowledge us at all, it was clear she was attending to someone in the phone so it did not bother me. However after she completed her call she gruffly asked What do you need?

I asked her about some supplies and mentioned we had previously visited another violin store with the same name in another location. At this point she unloaded a tirade on me. I didn't know that the two similarly named stores were not related but she gave me such a scolding! And called the other store "evil" and accused it of lying about instruments and having terrible business practices.

She made us feel like complete idiots. (Its the SAME name. i dont think its idiotic or unreasonable to make this mistake!) My daughter and I were made so uncomfortable by this that we just walked out. The store itself was beautiful and my daughter, who loves music so much, was so disappointed to have seen such ugly behavior in such a lovely setting.

I would never return. I will, however, return to the other similarly named store where we found the owner to be extremely helpful and fair, as well as recommended by many local music teachers.

I have visited Menzel Violins twice in the past two months, the first time to find my dream violin and the second to evaluate the violin I already own and to find the bow that would bring out its best sound. Mo Menzel has a beautiful space with the instruments on display and accessible, hanging in rows in warm wood frames going up to the ceiling. The open space, recessed lighting and comfortable seating make one feel that they are in a special place.

During both visits, Mo Menzel gave me her full attention, listening carefully to what I was looking for, and spent generous time and unstinting effort to make sure that I left there fully satisfied. I was impressed with her insight, energy and knowledge of violins and grateful that she channeled all into finding me the right instrument and two bows with which I am totally happy.

She generously let me try numbers of violins and bows without hesitation, picking out the ones she thought would fulfill my wishes until she narrowed the choices down to those I favored. This after my visit to another dealer where, with no guidance and no way to get close to the instruments, I had to point over a counter to a distant violin I thought I wanted to try and where, after 4 violins, I began to feel that I was imposing on the staff. Mo Menzel gets my fullest and most enthusiastic recommendation. It was a pleasure doing business with her!