This place bailed me out of a huge jam recently. My usual go-to plumbing supply place, The Faucet Shoppe, was closed for two weeks over the holidays, and I was up the creek with two cracked shower stems (that apparently happens when a tenant leaves his door open when it's 30 below zero), that were unlabled and apparently uncommon.
After driving all over the city in blinding snow and frigid cold, in my own personal planes-trains-and-automobiles style odyssey, and getting blank stares from so-called professionals at other so-called plumbing supply stores, these folks were able to recognize and give me the right part.
In general, shopping here warms the Special Area of my anti-big-box soul. It's like a slightly scaled down Home Depot, but with a genuine small business vibe. They have pretty much everything you want, in a warmer more welcoming atmosphere. For some reason the main thing that struck me about this place was the low (compared to Home Depot) ceilings. It was nice shopping in a hardware super store without the imminent threat of an improperly shelved pallet of toilets falling on top of me and thereby bringing my meager existence to a merciful, ignominous yet somehow fitting end.
There are a couple reasons why I can't give this place the full five stars, though.
First, when I bought the stems ($70) I made it very clear to the guy at the plumbing desk I was not a plumber and was unfamiliar with ceramic disk cartridges specifically, and asked if there was anything I needed to know to install it without ballsing the whole thing up. He said no and it was as easy as could be. When I got back to the building I noticed the stems were both in several pieces inside the bag (I don't know if they gave them to me that way or that happened in transit, but I wasn't particularly rough with them). I put them back together and installed them, but I had cracked the disks either putting them together or installing them and so had to go back the next day and do the whole thing over again.
When I explained what happened, the guys at the desk first made fun of me then explained that ceramic disk cartridges are very expensive and very delicate and I needed to take care to keep them in one piece and not overtighten them otherwise they would break. I was like, "Okay, but didn't I kind of ask this question one day and $70 ago?" All in all, I can't blame them for my incompetence but I still feel like the guy could have been a little more helpful up front.
Lastly, it took me like twenty minutes to check out, which was kind of annoying. They only had two lanes open and as soon as I got to the front of the one lane the older lady at the register closed it to take a quick break. I can't be too hard on her--she was about 700 years old, had obviously been on her feet drinking coffee all day, and probably just had to make a quick BMW. But couldn't they have one of the other 50 people working there cover the register if they're only going to have two lanes for the whole store? I switched over to the back of the only remaining line, and by the time I got to the register the girl at the counter continued to chat with the guy in front of me (a contractor, obviously a regular) for a while as though there was no one behind him, which probably wouldn't have irked me otherwise but given all the above was irritating.
The day was thoroughly saved though by the fact that they have Tootsie Roll Pops at the register. These are probably my favorite candy ever despite the fact they make me think of the old creepy commercial where the owl who is really a pedophile gets off on licking kids' Tootsie Pops. I bought like twenty and nom-nomed them on the way home, put in the second set of $70 stems and forgot about all the above.
So I guess I'm saying I liked the place. Like I said, they bailed me out of a jam. read more