Meet Evan Roberts | Piano Dealer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Evan Roberts and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Evan, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
# Shoutout Houston Interview — Part 1

## Q: Social impact — how does your business help the community or the world?

A lot of what we do is consignment. We connect sellers with buyers, and that’s where I see the real impact of what we do. A family is letting go of a piano that raised their kids, and then on the other end you have someone whose face just lights up when they sit down at it. It could be a child starting lessons. Could be somebody in retirement who finally has the time to play. I had a client recently who grew up with a Schimmel grand in their childhood home, and decades later they came into the shop and bought one. You can’t put a price on something like that. We just get to be there for it.

The other side of it is watching people come through the door. I genuinely enjoy that part. There’s a fantasy to it. You can see it in their expression when they realize they could actually own one of these. Last week a client told me he can’t always express what he’s feeling in words, but at the piano he can let some of it out. Someone else was telling me about the power of love coming through music. Those are the conversations that stick with me. A piano ends up being a place where people meet themselves and meet each other. For me, meet God too.

A lot of my clients are thinkers. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, programmers. For them a hobby can’t just be something mindless. They enjoy the piano because it actually engages the mind as well as the soul. Giving them a way to relax while shifting their mind into a completely different sphere is priceless. You can see the relief on their face when they sit down. They’re not solving anything, they’re not on a screen, but they’re still using their brain in a way that feels good to them.

I think that’s where my pastoral side and the business overlap. I lead worship and preach, mostly in Spanish, here in Houston. And I see the same thing on a Sunday that I see in the shop on a regular weekday. Music opens people up. So when we help a family find the right piano, I’m not thinking about the sale. I’m thinking about the years of music and healing and connection that piano is going to make possible for them. That’s what keeps me showing up.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I actually grew up around pianos. My father had a piano business in Oxford, in the UK, and that’s where I trained. Some of my earliest memories are lying under the grand piano as a child while my father played, hearing the sound from underneath. Before that, even. Then later, my first memory of being in a piano store was playing darts with my brothers in the workshop at the back of my father’s first shop in Portsmouth. So pianos have just always been around. One of the first memories I have of actually working on one was helping my father with a piano that used to live in a bar. It was a white upright that had turned yellow from years of cigarette smoke. We buffed it up, cleaned it, and he sold it on. I was just a kid. Then around 17, on school holidays, I was restringing a German piano and filling a soundboard. During college I was doing web admin for the business, voicing, tuning. So this trade has really been part of my whole life.
I came to the US in September 2015 as a worship leader, after spending three months in Argentina the year before. In 2019, my wife and I were planning to get married, and I needed more income, so I went back into pianos. I started tuning, and then slowly began selling pianos out of my garage. Really inexpensive stuff at first. Then we bought our first shop space from a hoarder. We spent about six months cleaning it out and remodeling before we could even open the doors. From there I hired some friends, eventually scaled back, and now we’re in a much better location and growing again.
What sets Roberts Pianos apart, I think, is a combination of three things. First, honesty. We don’t do high pressure. I’d rather educate someone and have them walk out without buying than push them into a piano that isn’t right for them. Honestly, if someone comes in asking about a piano I don’t have in stock, and it’s a piano I genuinely like, I’ll get excited about it with them. I’ll even be a little sad I don’t have one to show them. I’m not trying to sell what’s on the floor. I’m trying to help them find what’s right. I can always take a number and get back to them when one comes in. Second, expertise. I voice, tune, and prep every piano myself or with my team. I know these instruments because I’ve worked on them since I was a kid. Third, curation. We’re not trying to fill the showroom with anything we can find. Every piano in our shop is there because we believe it’s worth playing.
It hasn’t been easy. The biggest challenge has been growing the business while keeping ministry and family at the center of my life. Reading E-Myth helped me a lot with that. It taught me to actually build systems and create margin to grow a team, instead of trying to do everything myself. The other side has been the slow work of building trust and relationships over time. There’s no shortcut to that. Learning how to pick the right pianos to buy, how to finish and prep them, how to clean and tune and touch them up, how to actually engage with clients in a way that serves them — that whole workflow took years to develop. And honestly I’m still refining it.
If there’s one thing I want people to know about Roberts Pianos, it’s that we take the work seriously because we take the people seriously. A piano is going to live in someone’s home for decades. We want it to be the right one.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Honestly, the first place I’d take them is my church. That’s the heart of my life here, and Houston has such a rich faith and music scene. I’d want them to experience what worship looks like in a bicultural Latino community. That sets the tone for everything else.
For food, Houston is genuinely one of the best cities in the country, and we love eating around. My wife is Salvadoran, so we’d absolutely take them out for pupusas. There’s something about that food that just makes a meal feel like home. We’re also big fans of Pho Binh — Vietnamese is one of our go-to date night spots. And of course you can’t visit Houston without doing Tex-Mex. That’s non-negotiable. Houston Tex-Mex is its own category.
For getting outside, Memorial Park is where I’d take them. It’s massive, it’s beautiful, and you can just walk and talk for hours. Great for a real conversation. Then for something more urban, I’d take them to POST Houston downtown. The rooftop park up there gives you these incredible views over the city, and there’s a great food hall on the ground floor with chef-driven spots from all over.
And of course, I’d bring them by the shop. I’d love to sit them at one of the pianos and let them play for a bit. That’s kind of how I show people who I am.
If we had a full week, I’d also do a road trip out to Austin. Honestly, Austin is the most beautiful part of Texas to me. It’s a great drive, the city has a totally different feel from Houston, and it’s worth the time.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First and foremost, God. I’m a pastor, and divine inspiration is the foundation of everything I do, especially music. None of this works without that being at the center.
My father has shaped me more than anyone. I traveled up and down the country with him going to see pianos, carrying out guarantees, meeting with clients at the shop. He taught me how to voice a piano, how to tune, a lot about theory and musical form, and improvisation. Without improvisation I’d honestly be nothing as a pianist. It opened up so many doors for me. Beyond the technical stuff, he taught me about character, integrity, and faith in the work. That part has stayed with me even more than the trade itself.
My wife Rubidia deserves a lot of credit too. She’s entrepreneurial in a way I’m not. I’m honestly not the typical entrepreneur. I’m cautious, slow, risk averse. She’s the one who has helped me take steps I wouldn’t have taken on my own. A lot of what Roberts Pianos has become exists because she pushed me forward when I would have stayed still.
I also want to give a quick shoutout to Marselis Renner here in Houston, who taught me a lot about tuning and regulation. Those skills are the backbone of what we do.

Website: https://www.robertspianoshouston.com

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Image Credits
Chris Garcia