I shopped at this place online and at their location in Chicago for many years. I lived in the suburbs and would make the long drive specifically to go to this store because I wanted to support a local business. Then a few years ago, I had an incredibly nasty interaction with Mitch on their Facebook page. He had written some post about how avian vets don't know what they're doing, they're terrible and trying to kill your birds for money etc., and everyone should just listen to him instead because he knows more than they do. (I suspect they might have been more amenable to working with the vet who had a problem with a product if she WEREN'T a veterinarian, to be completely honest, because that was how high the level of hostility is to veterinary professionals.) I politely objected to this. He seemed to just lose his mind and was extremely nasty, rude, and demeaning right off the bat. Honestly, he seems like a very unstable individual and I cannot understand why he interacts with customers in any way when he is temperamentally incapable of behaving professionally. I couldn't believe the level of unprofessionalism when I was very deliberately and clearly not being inflammatory or combative at all. I now work in customer service and I don't even behave like that to customers who ARE inflammatory or combative. It was just so bizarre. He explicitly didn't care that he was losing a customer with his wildly unprofessional behavior. Apparently I should have known he was like that because he has always been like that, and any real long-time loyal customer would have known that, and he didn't need my business anyway. And as you can see from some of the reviews here, I'm not the only one who has had this kind of interaction with Mitch. He's been like that to other long-term customers as well. It sounds like from the reviews he is perfectly nice to people who defer to him in all things and bolster his apparently massive ego, but if you say, "I don't agree with you," get ready to have your head immediately torn off and to be told that they don't need your business. It's deeply messed up. If you can do without your customers--including and especially your loyal customers who have been shopping with you for 10 years or more--then I guess you really can do without your customers. I've been shopping at Petsmart and Chewy ever since. Much better service, and particularly Chewy is great at making their customers feel valued despite being such a large business. At the very least, no one is going to go out of their way to alienate you at a chain store. read more