In 2023, Humboldt creatives Marta Lapczynski & Chris Reynoso — both business owners wanting to level up the professionalism & seriousness of their endeavors — carpooled each Tuesday evening to a business class at College of the Redwoods led by Professor Matthew Cendejas. At the semester’s end, Chris was ready to push forward finding a formal location for Atlantis Recording Company, & Marta had pivoted toward a vision for a mixed-use business centering local arts, & open to the public. Thus the concept of Good Day Studios was born.

This original vision took even clearer form when Chris was scouting for Atlantis Recording locations & noticed a 2,200 square foot commercial building available  to rent for $2,200 a month. Marta got to work drafting a blueprint that created a home for Atlantis, two private soundproofed practice spaces for musicians available on longer-term leases, one private soundproofed practice space available to rent hourly, three private art studios, an art classroom, & in the front, Good Day Shop! Two peers hopped on board, wanting to participate in bringing this vision to life.

The team of four spent January through April of 2024 viewing available commercial spaces in the indicated size range, & meeting to discuss operational logistics for Good Day Studios. However, by April it had become apparent that the right space at the right location was not presently available. The group considered alternate means of getting the business established, & settled on the idea of a year of pop-up events — think, “Good Day Studios presents: at The Miniplex: [this band], [this band], & [this band]!” — to get the name out there & start building momentum.

Simultaneously, Steve Lovett of People’s Records, after many years of wanting to expand his business, was undergoing the arduous but deeply rewarding process of moving People’s from 725 8th Street to the much larger space at 833 H Street, just yards across the Arcata Plaza. With 725 8th Street vacated after 43 years of continuous occupancy, building owners Gail & Tony Rossi sprung to action, hiring Arcata architect Martha Jain to help them figure out the myriad steps required to restore the well-worn building.

During this season, Marta — who had worked for the Rossi family at All Under Heaven (735 8th Street) for six years! — disclosed to Gail & Lisken Rossi the plans for this entrepreneurial endeavor, revealing the fact that All Under Heaven would need to hire another employee at some point in the relatively near future. The Rossis were nothing but enthusiastically supportive, & the spring season of 2024 was very exciting with so many ideas in motion! Steve was getting situated at his new spot, the Rossis were dreaming about the future of 725 8th, & Marta was eager to bring Good Day Studios into the public eye!

Well, the Rossis soon learned that because of the building’s Historic designation, construction to improve it would be much more complicated than they’d initially anticipated. Every time they met with city professionals about inspections & permits, the timeline for the project was extended. Before long, Gail had realized she’d need to offer a short-term lease on the space, because having it sit vacant for a year or more wasn’t realistic for her! When she disclosed this intention to Marta, everything instantaneously clarified: 725 8th Street was where Good Day Studios was destined to launch, via the humble start of Good Day Shop. But Marta went home & slept on this idea, frankly pretty nervous to present the concrete reality of parting ways from the employer-employee relationship that had meant so much over the course of the six years prior. But the next day it happened: Marta proposed to Gail the idea of opening Good Day Shop at 725 8th Street — assuring her that “no” was a completely acceptable answer that would cause no interpersonal strife — but Gail responded, “That sounds perfect.”

From there, the rest is history. Marta spent late spring & early summer ripping shelving out of the walls, spackling millions of holes, scraping stickers off of surfaces, & applying fresh paint to the lower portion of the walls (with invaluable assistance from Chris Reynoso, Ramon Reynoso, Azariah Mohr, & Giovani Loayes-Rocco, & a motley crew of others!), meanwhile connecting with artist friends to find out who would like to sell their work at this brand new art store! Good Day Shop opened to the public on August 1st, 2024, & enjoyed a proper Grand Opening ceremony on August 9th, complete with a ribbon cutting made possible by the Arcata Chamber of Commerce.

Over the course of those last four months of 2024, Good Day Shop paid more than $10,000 to local artists for the sales of their work, & in early 2025 was nominated by the Arcata Chamber of Commerce as a contestant for “New Chamber Member of the Year.” Good Day Shop lost to YouthAbility, which was no surprise & spawns no hard feelings (we love YouthAbility!) — it was just a delight to be recognized in the first place, especially as a business still in its infancy.

Thanks for reading this far! To be continued . . .