SCHOOL OF ROCK DC

After nearly going out of business in 2002, Middle C Music is now thriving and expanding in Tenleytown, says the Washington Times. Previously selling instruments, sheet music etc., the new owners of the store located at 4350 Wisconsin added music lessons to the mix and the whole enterprise took off.

Moving beyond strictly retail, the addition adds 1,250 square feet of mostly teaching studio space. Private lessons, with instructors who work at the store part time, cost $40 per half hour, regardless of the instrument. Choose among: acoustic & electric guitar, piano, cello, violin, saxophone, bass, harmonica, percussion, voice, clarinet, flute, & recorder.

"I just thought, 'You've got to do something to save the store'," owner Myrna Sislen said. "If the place closed, I knew we'd be looking at another mattress store."

She's got a point retail these days seems to gravitate between chains of all sizes and must old stores that no one really wants to partronize. Everyone complains about the malling of their 'hood, but to find thriving local retail is becoming harder and harder. It's a conundrum wrapped inside a riddle. No wait that's Russia. Nevermind.

GIANT IN VAN NESS, at 4303 Connecticut Ave., will reopen March 23. This store was omitted from the supermarket roundup.