Homestead Pickin’ Parlor, a hub for Twin Cities acoustic musicians, will close July 31

There won’t be any more pickin’ and grinnin’ in Richfield after the Homestead Pickin’ Parlor, a hub for the Twin Cities bluegrass and folk music community for 46 years, closes on July 31.

“We go without regrets,” said founder Marv Menzel, who owns Homestead with his wife, Dawn. “I’m 82. I missed retirement for 15 years already. I’m not totally disappointed.”

Menzel said the decision to close was prompted by a new landlord doubling the rent.

“As capitalists will do, he upped the rent to the point where we could no longer profitably function,” Menzel said Monday. “He’s got to do what he’s got to do.”

Menzel declined to specify the new rent amount.

Founded in late 1979 in a nondescript strip mall on Penn Avenue S., Homestead Pickin’ Parlor is a multipurpose music store, selling instruments and recorded music, offering music lessons, repairing instruments and providing a performance space for frequent jams.

“It’s the heart of the [acoustic and bluegrass] community,” said Ross Willits, executive director of the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old Time Music Association and a former member of the Platte Valley Boys.

Garrison Keillor relied on a contingent of folk and bluegrass musicians that frequented Homestead to provide the music for his “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show.

“Homestead was a base for acoustic musicians, a place to drop in and meet people of like persuasion,” Keillor said via email. “You’d likely discover the Carter Family or Doc Watson or the Red Clay Ramblers on your own but at Homestead you’d find people you could talk to about them.”

Quillan Roe, leader of the veteran old-timey Twin Cities ensemble the Roe Family Singers, worked at Homestead for a couple of years circa 2016 when recovering from cancer.

“It was the perfect place to heal, though that’s not what a shop that sells banjos and mandolins is supposed to be about,” Roe said Monday. “It was just this nurturing, friendly environment.

“My job was to sit in the music room, playing the banjo all day and talking to customers and helping them out,” he added. “We’d talk and solve the world’s problems like you do. It was magical.”

When Ellen Stanley moved to the Twin Cities in 2001 after college, she decided she wanted to learn how to play banjo. So she went to Homestead, bought a banjo there and returned for lessons on Saturdays for years. She later brought her banjo for many a jam at the Richfield music hub.

“Marv and Dawn created such a magical, unpretentious space for people to gather who loved acoustic music,” said Stanley, who performs as Mother Banjo. “All the people there were so knowledgeable. You don’t need like a secret handshake or invite. It’s important to have physical hubs for people to meet and make music and bump into each other in a more casual way.”

Menzel said business was steady except for declining CD sales. However, his staff was trimmed to himself and his wife as well as two teachers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Homestead had about 20 teachers.

“It’s a very marginal type of business,” Menzel said. “It’s got to be a labor of love. If I’d not enjoyed the work, I probably would have retired at the age of 65. It’s a lot of fun and the clientele are wonderful people.”

Homestead is having a fire sale on CDs. The shop sold its vinyl inventory to a dealer.

“He has CDs you couldn’t find anyplace else or even on Amazon,” Roe said of Menzel. “He never got rid of anything” by sending unsold inventory back to the distributor, a conventional practice in the industry.

Roe called Menzel the “most humble person I’ve ever worked with.” The acoustic music maven helped present Twin Cities concerts by bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe and African singers Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but he’s not a name dropper.

Since jam sessions and concerts at Homestead ended a few years ago, Willits said they take place almost every day at Twin Cities coffee shops, brew pubs and, on Tuesday nights, at Books for Africa in St. Paul.

“The community wouldn’t be as vibrant now if it hadn’t had the focus of the Pickin’ Parlor in the early days, that’s for sure,” Willits said.

Acoustic musicians who shopped at Homestead can find strings online and at guitar stores. The other Twin Cities spot for acoustic players, the Podium in Dinkytown, closed in 2017 after a 58-year run. Finding shops for instrument repairs might be more challenging these days, said Willits, who plays bass, guitar and mandolin.

In retirement, the Menzels say they will be able to attend the kind of concerts they’ve missed over the years because they were working six days a week. And they will spend time with family.

“We’ve got [10-year-old] twin granddaughters in Colorado who we plan on seeing more frequently,” Menzel said. “We stay in touch with them on the internet, but it’s not the same as being with them. We’re not at a loss for things to do.”