Bigfoot Music has been outfitting Snohomish County musicians from its storefront at 3405 172nd Street NE in Arlington, Washington since it opened its doors back in November 1996, giving the shop nearly three decades of history in the same small town music retail space. The store sells a full range of musical instruments and equipment, from acoustic guitars and accessories to cables and studio monitors, serving everyone from beginning students picking up their first instrument to working professional musicians who need reliable equipment for gigs and recording sessions. Alongside new gear, Bigfoot Music also carries carefully vetted used equipment, giving budget conscious shoppers and collectors another way to find instruments without paying full retail.
Beyond straightforward retail, the shop rounds out its business with music lessons, instrument rentals, and repair services, making it a one stop resource for a musician at almost any stage, whether that means renting a school band instrument for a semester, getting a guitar restrung and set up, or signing up for lessons to actually learn to play what is sitting in the case. That combination of retail, rental, lessons, and repair under one roof is common at long running independent music stores but increasingly rare compared to big box retailers, which tend to specialize narrowly in new gear sales alone.
Arlington sits along the Stillaguamish River in Snohomish County, a smaller community north of Everett, and Bigfoot Music has built its business around the kind of personal, repeat customer relationships that come naturally in a town of that size. The shop’s own materials draw a direct contrast with larger chain retailers, noting that visitors notice the difference the moment they walk in, describing a community feeling that makes it easy to become a regular rather than just another transaction. That approach extends to how the shop vets used gear and prices merchandise, aiming for competitive pricing without cutting corners on quality, an explicit no junk allowed standard that shapes what actually makes it onto the sales floor.
The store keeps extended hours to accommodate working musicians and students alike, open Monday through Friday from 10 in the morning to 7 at night, Saturdays from 10 to 6, and a shorter Sunday window from noon to 3, giving customers several days a week to shop, drop off a repair, or make a lesson appointment. Bigfoot Music also maintains an online storefront through Reverb, extending its reach to musicians outside Snohomish County who want to browse or buy gear without a trip to Arlington. For a shop with almost thirty years in the same community, that mix of physical storefront and online marketplace presence has let it grow its customer base well past its original local footprint.
Bigfoot Music in Arlington is a nearly three decade old independent music store offering new and used instruments, lessons, rentals, and repair services, built around the kind of personal customer relationships that keep Snohomish County musicians coming back.
