Visited this tiny shop in a strip mall, looking for good deals on clothes for the women in my life. Came in with family in tow... wife, teenage daughter, daughters boyfriend, our six-year-old-daughter, and our three-year-old son. We had cash and were ready to spend some of it.
The initial impression was a stuffy venue, feigning to be classy, and filled with slightly-aged but highly-fashionable attire (think a second hand store for wealthy Cougars). It's a well organized place, with all of the name brands kept together, and all of the shoes being color-coordinated. There are some strange desks in the back painted with clutter, and open palettes of office supplies covering the back walls (which is highly out of place, but I can live with that). Also, there was a blurb scrawled on a white board near the back of the building (in the employee only zone), which states "Email of the Week: Ladies, do not use the word 'stuff' when referring to our fabulous products--The Management", which should paint a good picture of the type of place this is.
It would be a good treasure trove for a certain aging-hipster demographic, or young adults looking for that vintage look, however the positive aspects are offset by the atrocious customer service. My wife and I are in our early-thirties, but she (especially) looks like a teenager herself (she gets carded when buying lighters). From their (the employees) perspective, I imagine they saw a pack of young hoodlums about to rampage through the storefront and tarry off with fistfuls of their precious over-priced loot. So they sic a bubbly but wary employee on us to literally hound our shadows the whole time, making sure we weren't going to start looting and plundering on their watch.
The manager, an aging blonde woman trying to look young-and-trendy, kept watch from the register, casting snide glances in our direction from time to time. As any parent knows, kids will be kids, and constraining them completely is not always possible (some antics are and should be fault-tolerated automatically). They are running and playing, looking at merchandise (my six-year-old daughter is VERY excited about the designer hats and the Roxy for kids clothes). Our teenagers are just talking amongst themselves and browsing quietly, out of site in the shoe-racks. I overhear the ancient blonde woman, as she glowers at our little-ones, and states to a cohort, "I don't want those kids running around in here... I don't want them in here touching anything. Go do something about it!" To which her associate does, approaching our kids and furtively asking them not to play around the clothes because the racks could fall on them. I chastise the little ones, and scoop up my son, heading for the door with him over my shoulder to take him out to the car, so my wife and the others could finish shopping in peace. He engages terrible threes mode, and kicks and screams the whole way out. I look around as I'm leaving and am confronted exclusively with a sea of died-blonde heads in haggard faces, shaking from side-to-side amidst pretentious scowls and eyes narrowed in judgment.
The sense of unwelcome I felt on first entering was palpable, but reached a thickness you could butter bread with by the end. My wife and the others emerged, shaken up by the experience, which continued after I left when the old blonde manager was rude to them during check out. We ended up spending $127.00, but that is the first and last taste of our honey they will ever receive.
Because we looked young, had kids with us, and are wearing pop-culture clothes (I was wearing a Tesla themed shirt from "Shirt Woot" and a black fedora hat), they treated us and (especially our little ones) like we were plague vectors. We aren't wearing Coach shoes and carrying Prada bags. I'm a programmer at a major tech company (locally) and make excellent money, however I am used to being written off as a "mere peasant" because I like quirky t-shirts, blue jeans, and have long hair. But this type of treatment from paying customers is obscene. Some people have families and not everyone of value wears Abercrombie and Fitch hoodies with Tommy Hilfiger sunglasses... this is not a store I would recommend to anyone that has a shred of dignity or an ounce of self-esteem. Maybe if being involved in a real-life staging of the Devil Wears Prada sounds appealing, this highfaluting henhouse will be a dream come true! read more