C.B. Stark Jewelers is a place that’s so well known you probably take it for granted. If you’ve ever needed a new charm, or cuff links or had to have the battery changed in your wristwatch, chances are you went to C.B. Stark, which has stores on Main street in Vineyard Haven and North Water street in Edgartown.

The jewelry store turns 45 this year, which is a lot of years to be in business on the Vineyard.

“It’s just evolved into a bigger business than I could imagine,” said co-owner Cheryl Stark, remarking on how much the store has changed since she started out on Water street in Vineyard Haven in 1971. She paused. “No, I can imagine a bigger business,” she laughed. Though she no longer sits at the bench, she and her partner Margery Meltzer both design jewelry.

“We’re always thinking,” Ms. Stark said.

Jewelry has been Ms. Stark’s passion since high school. Trained in metalwork at the Boston Museum School, she got her start in a booth in the jewelry district in Manhattan in the 1960s. Her jewelry at the time was inspired by the peace sign. “Everyone kept saying to me, why aren’t you in the West Village?” she recalled with a laugh.

By contrast, Ms. Meltzer has no formal training in metalwork; she was a philosophy major in college with a master’s degree in Jungian psychology. “Cheryl taught me what she knew and some things I learned and did by myself,” said Ms. Meltzer, who is today an artist of many talents including painting and jewelry design.

The store is well-known for designing jewelry that is evocative of the Vineyard. “We love the Vineyard. Our customers love the Vineyard. It’s a memento of something they love,” Ms. Meltzer said.

Ms. Stark came to the Vineyard for the first time in 1966 when she was 19 and had been asked to teach jewelry making at the Island Craft Center. “I wasn’t into making fine jewelry,” she said of her style. “I had an assortment of jobs, like everyone back then,” she added. The store began as a seasonal operation and became year-round in 1972, when it moved from Water street to Main street, Vineyard Haven.

The Edgartown store marked just one expansion of the C.B. Stark jewelry enterprise. “I think we’ve had to change with the times to stay in business,” said Ms. Meltzer. “Our bread and butter are things that people run in and they want right away,” she added.

Ms. Stark has been active in the Tisbury Business Association and the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce; she said she believes strongly that being in business on Main street carries a higher responsibility. “We’re always trying to do what we can for the town of Tisbury,” Ms. Stark said. But she admitted that the vagaries of running a year-round business in a resort community can be difficult. “Sustaining the winters is a challenge,” Ms. Stark said, although online sales now provide a boost in the winter months.

“We both believe if we just keep doing a good job and doing right by people than we’ll continue to have a good business,” Ms. Meltzer said, adding: “We have wonderful employees.”

In addition to selling their own designs, the store does custom work, repairs and restoration of old pieces. “It’s important, but it’s also important that people know we can make pretty much anything they want out of silver, gold, platinum, whatever,” Ms. Meltzer said. Ms. Stark agreed. “We do a lot of custom work. It’s a big part of our business,” she said. The store also features other jewelry designers such as Ed Levin whose work Ms. Stark has carried since the 1970s.

“We have that inventory for everyone,” Ms. Stark said of her two stores.

And after 45 years, Cheryl Stark said the fire has not gone out. “It’s still a passion,” she said of her business. “I haven’t taken it [success] for granted or gotten complacent.”

“Our challenge for the future will be coming up with more original jewelry designs,” said Ms. Meltzer. In fact, a new collection is expected to be coming out soon.

“It comes from me taking a series of photographs about a year and a half or two years ago and thinking, gee, this would make a good, new collection,” Ms. Meltzer said. “Our jewelry store is like a little family, we all bounce ideas off each other.”