This place does excellent (though very expensive) dry cleaning, but do NOT have any altering or tailoring done here! They will do it wrong, weaken your garment, and then when you point out the problem, spend twenty minutes not listening to you while insisting that their error is right. Infuriating.
My husband took in a velvet and taffeta ball gown of mine for dry cleaning. He forgot that he'd told Concierge that they could automatically fix damaged seams in his garments without asking, so when they saw a small tear in the side-seam of the taffeta skirt of the gown, they went ahead and "fixed" it. All fine so far; I wouldn't have had them do it, but it was a slip of memory/miscommunication situation, with no one at fault.
However, instead of just sewing up the half-inch torn part of the seam, they sewed up the ENTIRE SKIRT OPENING all the way to the waist -- about five inches. Now, this is a fitted bodice, with a tight waist, and no elastic. Any tailor who has any knowledge of women's garments will realize that a long dress has to get onto the woman somehow; if the bodice is fitted and the waist doesn't stretch, you need an opening in the waist that goes a few inches into the skirt (closed at the waist by a zipper or buttons or snaps or something) so that the gown can go over the woman's head and shoulders! But now it's sewn closed all the way to the waist, so the gown is at the moment unwearable.
Okay -- so far it's just a piece of incompetence, but not the greatest crime. Careless mistakes happen, and maybe the tailor lacks experience, or has never dealt with women's clothing before. So I'm trying to explain to the owner of the business why the "repair" has actually made the garment worse, and why I'm upset. (This is a delicate gown, and the taffeta around the seam has begun to fray a bit; and the LAST thing you want to do on fraying fabric is randomly sew and rip out seams any more than you need to.)
Now, if the owner had listened to me, he would have understood how and why the work by his tailor needs to be ripped out, and what should have been done instead. But he simply would not listen! I showed him the waist, and how small it was, and explained how now it wouldn't go over my head -- showed him where the fabric was fraying -- the whole bit. But every time I tried, he just kept pointing to the seam on the other side of the waist, and telling me in a loud voice that his tailor was right, because what you're supposed to do is make both sides of the garment look identical, so of course the tailor matched the left side to the right side. Which is ridiculous! Whatever I said, he just got defensive, and kept telling me that HE was a tailor, too, and knew how to sew, and again "look at the stitching on the right! That's how you're suppose to match it on the left side!"
He offered to rip out the stitching and try again, but given his clear lack of understanding of everything I was saying, I told him I would rather fix it myself.
UPDATE: After I posted this review, the owner phoned my husband's cell phone during work hours and complained at some length about my review. He insisted that my husband try to get me to take my review down and then phone him back. Yes, he not only interrupted my husband at work, at a cell number that was only given so he could alert him when he had dry cleaning to pick up -- but apparently now my husband owes him another phone call. (And all over a 2-star review that did not change his overall rating one bit, and even mentioned that he does good dry cleaning. Imagine what he would do to you if you gave him one star.) This behavior is simply unprofessional.
Because the owner is putting comments on this yelp review, and insisting on multiple phone calls with my husband over the issue, let me restate once and for all my message to him: Sir: when I pointed out the error your tailor made, if you had responded with "oh, I see what my tailor did; he clearly got confused there; my apologies, please let me fix it" I would have let you fix it, even though the extra sewing and seam-ripping weakened the garment, and even though I think $10 for a five-inch straight seam is rather overpriced. But because you spent fifteen minutes telling me that your tailor did the right thing, even when I showed you clearly the garment was now unwearable, I no longer trust the sewing expertise of either you or your tailor. This is why I am fixing my gown rather than you. Now will you please stop phoning my husband at work? read more