Faiella, the owner of The Frewsbarber Shop does a lot more than styling and cutting hair – he also dubs as a luthier of sorts, for stringed, musical instruments.

At the back of the barbershop, is where Faiella prefers to spend his time, in his music repair shop. Faiella, after he hangs up his barber-smock, dons his workshop apron. In the back of the shop he can be found spending time repairing, restoring or creating an assortment of music making, stringed instruments.

Additionally, several of Faiella’s most-prized restorations are proudly on display in the barbershop portion of the building.

“This is my 300-year-old, fully restored, Stradivarius cello,” he said of the instrument on display. “I spent a lot of time and money restoring this instrument – it was in shambles when I got it.”

Nick Faiella, the owner and proprietor of the Frewsbarber shop, located at Water and Main Streets, in Frewsburg, is working in his stringed instrument repair, restoration and creation shop, Saturday, which is in the back of the barbershop. Several of Faiella’s current projects can be seen in the foreground. P-J photo by Christopher Blakeslee

Faiella said that when he and his partners opened the barbershop at Water and Main streets in July 2024, they chose the current location because it had enough room to also house his repair and restoration shop.

“Frewsburg is a quiet town, and this location is everything I wanted,” he said.

While repairing, creating or restoring stringed instruments is a passion for Faiella, it is not his main source of revenue flow.

“I repair a couple of instruments a year, and restore one or two,” he added. “To keep it affordable, I try to keep my prices down, so I can’t live on doing this alone. I don’t really have a price guide, I just charge based on how much I need to spend on raw materials and the hours I put into a project,” said Faiella. “I have to find that weird price-point, where it’s still more cost effective to repair an instrument versus just buying a new one.”

Faiella said that he’s restored several violins, violas, cellos and acoustic-style guitars.

“I’ve cleaned up and restored many variations of stringed instruments,” he said.