Steve H.'s Profile

I use J & L for wash and fold and dry cleaning. The owner is super nice, and at $.80 a pound, their prices are hard to beat. I've been coming here for about 3 years now and I love it.

Please, never go here. I hope the management reads this because the fact that you're still in business is a total anomaly.

If I could give them NEGATIVE points, I would. Rather than waste more time describing the problems with this establishment at length, I will list all of their cons.

1) Prices are inconsistent. I just walked in to purchase an item, one that I purchase every day, and the price varies. When I asked the cashier about the price discrepancy (literally, I was there yesterday), he just got angry and said THIS IS THE PRICE. I told him I would take my business elsewhere.

2) The cashiers blame the customers for everything. There pumps frequently don't work and they always act like the customer is stupid and incapable of operating a gas pump.

3) The employees are surly. Did I mention that the people that work there are mean, and seem to have contempt for the customers? The manager is the worst of them all. You'd think that we were stealing their money instead of purchasing their products.

4) ANECDOTE. Their pumps were out of service, after I used my last bit of gas to pull into their station. It was raining, hard. Not only did they keep blaming me for improperly using the pump, every single customer had the same problem and they kept blaming us. Not only did they make us BUY a gas can to use, we had to stroll across the street to use it. Not a smile, not an apology, just a bunch of mean spirited business people.

NEVER, EVER GO HERE. Support a business that actually cares about your patronage. You won't find that here.

Ugh, I am so frustrated with this place.

Thanks for the awesoome response and changing your policy.  I love thus place (writing review from Saturn now) .

This is a vegetarian review. If you don't care about vegetarian items, skip this!

I went there on Monday the 21, the second day they were open. I really enjoyed the tofu steak sandwich I had with provolone.  However, while preparing the food, the cooks used the SAME utensils for the vegetarian items as the meat items. Totally gross feeling watching that happen, despite the sandwich. I then proceed to tell both of the cooks that this is a bit inappropriate to cook that way because it defeats the purpose of ordering a vegetarian meal.

When they BOTH looked at me with blank stares, I said "Listen, I'm really not trying to be jerk, but when you mix the way you cook things, it defeats the purpose of calling that tofu vegetarian". They barely acknowledged me, and didn't even offer to make me another sandwich.

If they fix these issues, I'll be back. Otherwise, sheesh veggies, stay away!

edit: Adam H. sounds like he works there. No posting history before this one, style of the post sounds just a little too informative.

I have been a tenant of Charles and Cindy since May of 2007 and I have never had such a positive renting experience.

When I first went to rent the apartments I was a student at the University of Illinois and I  moved out here due to graduate school at Cal. Cindy and Chuck were the only people who were friendly enough to do all of the renting and showing of the apartments by email and phone. If things would have been different my moving experience would have been much less fantastic. Additionally, they let me ship all of my things to their home before I moved to California -- this saved me so much trouble.

Even beyond my initial experience, Cindy and Chuck have constantly proved to be amazing both as landlords and people. They are constantly working on the apartment and surrounding yard and garden to make the place look immaculate. They are friendly, honest and genuine -- hard to find in people, let alone in landlords.

The apartments themselves are furnished and well taken care of.

ANECDOTE ALERT!
In the past, they have made me cookies and pie and dropped them off freshly baked. In fact, one evening, I got a call from Cindy saying she just baked a peach pie for me and she wanted to drop it off while still warm. Much to my chagrin, I was unable to return to my apartment that evening. So, what did she do? She said, "no big deal, we'll bake you another pie tomorrow because we want you to have it hot". Awesome! Needless to say, that pie was eaten in one sitting.

Beyond the food, and hard work ethic, I genuinely love living in my apartment and it feels like Cindy and Chuck genuinely care for their tenants and their well being.

Sometimes I think about the fact that someday I will move from this apartment and it saddens me a bit -- I know that as far as landlords go, this is absolutely as good as it gets, everything else will pale in comparison.

I had my first visit to this vet today and it was an amazing experience. I delt with Dr. Yen and he was courteous, professional, warm and took genuine interest in my kitten's well being. All of the other staff were very nice and the vet tech that I dealt with was really, really excited to play with my kitten. Overall, a wonderful experience. I am glad it was such a great visit and I look forward to dealing with them for a long time!

Change seems great to IS great. After writing this review the owners contacted me over yelp and encouraged me to introduce myself. So, the next time I visited, I mentioned casually that I wrote a review. Before mentioning my name, one of the owners remembered my face and name from my yelp profile and introduced himself. In fact both owners introduced themselves! They also gave me 10% off! This really shows me that they care a lot about customer service.

Last time I visited I was accidentally overcharged for my latte. I sat outside snapping pictures of a cute chow when one of the employees came out and brought the mistake to my attention. I was offered pastries, a free refill, etc. all to make up for a $0.75 error. I told him that I'd pass on the goodies and just snag an extra espresso shot (or two!) the next time I visited.

One additional fact people may find useful. I consider myself somewhat of an espresso connoisseur. I'd rather buy Intelligentsia Black Cat than some mediocre blend and I avoid bad coffee at all costs. In fact, I have my own machine: a Rancilio Silvia semi-auto. I know the delicacies of proper grind, proper tamp pressure, and varying extraction temperature and time depending on the blend. It's not an easy technique and takes a long time to master. The point I am making is, I venture to this place to get good coffee away from home, awesome customer service, and great ambiance. This is without a doubt my coffee shop of choice.

This is really a 3.5 star review and I will make sure to update it to something better upon my next visit should conditions improve/degrade. (see below, I am capricious)

I like the atmosphere, it's reasonably close to my apartment pretty inexpensive. Today I ordered a triple small latte and to be quite honest, it isn't very good. I am an espresso/coffee aficionado and to me this latte is watered down and completely lacking flavor.

However, I often find that cafes cannot live up to my expectations because of the setup that I have at home. With all of that being said, this is probably one of the best cafes in berkeley sans the comment above. There are plenty of seats, decent music playing (my built to spill play list ended for a minute, so I could actually hear the music), lots of outlets for laptops, in fact each table in the back is surrounded by 4 outlets, free wifi, tons of food and snack selections and a wide variety of coffe drinks, tea, naked juice and all types of other goodies that look delicious.

Additionally, my latte was delivered to my table by the person working behind the counter. She was incredibly friendly and in general, the entire environment gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Nice lighting, a few outdoor seats, a view of shattuck, and open decently late for berkeley: 12am.

You know what, forget it, I'm rating this 4 stars, despite my previous claims, I have this deep-seated feeling that I have received this oh-so-watery latte in error!

I really want to give this place five stars and an even better review; I love the atmosphere and proximity to center of town, so I will definitely be back.

Ooooooh! Their light blubs are environmentally friendly too! You notice things like this while doing much to much work and staring off into the distance.

I actually agree with everything that Steve M said. Normally, I would reiterate all of the horrible things about this place, but I think he summed it up fairly well.  Bottle service, for $400 a bottle? You've got to be kidding me. Seriously, this place is terrible. Jumbled sentences show my frustration at how bad of a club Vice is.

I will make this as brief as possible namely because most of my posts turn into a james joyce style stream of consciousness review that contain way to much detail and not nearly enough content... ok, stop.

I am cheap when it comes to my haircuts, or at least I used to be. I was always the type of guy who went to the local *Cuts and paid $15 to have my hair chopped up haphazardly for20 minutes with completely variable results. I decided that I was tired of rolling the dice and I decided to give Sole a try.

Well, I went on Tuesday so I could get the discount cut. I have no problem spending money when I feel like I am getting my money's worth and good god, I totally did. I had never been to a salon before and Abby made my experience wonderful. I got a scalp massage, shampoo, condition, cut and styling; totally worth it. Now that I know what the experience is like and how pampered and relaxed I feel during the whole process, I have no problem shelling out the additional money for a cut any other day of the week. Instead of a haircut of varying quality, I know that I am paying for the assurance that I will have an awesome haircut and experience. Abby was totally fantastic and yes, yes, I have already re-booked an appointment a month from now.

Also, I thought it was incredibly interesting to overhear the jargon in the conversation that took place between Tony and Abby. I'm a CS guy so I am used to confusing people with my jargon, and not used to being on the receiving end. Okok, I am trailing off again, I just mean it was pretty neat to hear them talk about transitions and other nomenclature for haircuttery and the like.

Also, I don't care that I am one of the few guy reviewers for this place, it is totally awesome and I have found a new place to get sexified*.

Damn, this wasn't brief at all!

*sexified: the process of making one look sexy**.
**had to add the footnote to clarify that this is not THAT kind of place.

UPDATE: 2/10/2008
I still love this place so very much. Abby is completely wonderful. She does my hair perfectly and it's incredibly entertaining because she's really smart and an incredible conversationalist. I mentioned an oh so embarrassing story that my mother bought me this ridiculous cat calendar that I could *never* actually hang up in my apartment. As a result my love for cats and animals an general came up in conversation. As a result, after my appointment she said that she was heading home right afterwork and had brought her cat with her and asked me if I wanted to see it. omgyesidid. Anyhow, Abby let me play with her cat! She is incredibly awesome and a great stylist...you will not be disappointed.

I like kitties.

UPDATE 3/23/2008: She is witty even when she had far too much fun the night before. My berating was deserved.