Derek W.'s Profile

Brandon made an appointment and came back to finish the inspection.  He was helpful, and overall the experience was fine so I'm increasing the rating to something that is more middle-of-the-road.

The food is not bad.  In fact I actually thought that it was pretty decent.  The sandwiches that I tried were tasty, and the soups were fairly good as well.

HOWEVER, when I was paying my credit card today I saw a rather grievous mistake.  

The charge was $8.10 for a half of a sandwich and a cup of soup.  I tipped $0.90 (I mean it was my first time, and it doesn't really seem like a full-service place to me).  That is a total of $9.00.

My credit card was charged $17.10, which is my food charge of $8.10 plus a $9.00 tip.  (For those not following, that is 10 times the amount that I actually tipped.)

Now this might very well have been an honest mistake.  Or it might have been to spite the customer that did not tip enough.  In many years of using a credit card, I  have not had someone put in the wrong tip amount so I venture to say that any proprietor should be pretty good at that part of their job.  Whatever the case, I am now more wary of this place.

I suggest that you pay cash.  And don't do anything to make the workers unhappy because apparently that can lead to unfortunate reactions.

This place seemingly is a pricier version of Zankou Chicken, which I definitely had first.  The food is not bad here.  I usually opt for the 1/2 chicken special that includes rice, salad, and a drink.

When I first tried this place I would have given it 4 stars.  However, I am starting to grow less and less fond of this place as I see them growing and increasing in popularity.  Yelp put them on the map (that's how I and many others found out about this place).  Now that they're big, the prices just keep increasing.  The 1/2 chicken special that I get started off under $7 (if I remember correctly), and I felt like that was acceptable.  I just went there today, and it is now $8.50.  That doesn't seem like a whole lot until you consider that there really doesn't seem to be a reason to increase price except to increase their profit margin.  The economy is still in a definite lull, and inflation is negligible as of this review.  I can only conclude that they see that they are already popular and are in a position to easily make more money just by jacking up their prices incrementally.

This place does not lack for number of people because it's pretty packed for the lunch crowd both inside and outside.  The food is not expensive.  Chicken is probably the most expensive thing, and I am easily able to buy a whole one at a grocery store for around $2.50.  If I can buy that at a supermarket then I can only assume that they would be able to swing a much better deal.

I guess really the insult to injury was the fact that they now charge an extra 25 cents for 2 extra pita breads, whereas before I could ask and get as much as I'd like.  I will not be surprised when they start charging for refills on drinks.

I'm giving them 2 stars just to bring their overall rating down a tiny bit.  I was formerly satisfied with this place, but I do not like where they are headed (i.e., overpriced place that takes advantage of the fact that they have lots of Yelp reviews that are based on their old prices).  Besides, I really have experienced better for less (e.g., Zankou).

Came to Vinny's based on the Yelp reviews and its proximity to where we were (headed East on Lambert).  There was only 1 other couple in the place, and it was fairly prime lunch time (11:45 AM) on a Saturday.  Nevertheless we went in where we met and talked with Vinny, who was at the counter.  We told him that we were interested in some hot sandwiches, and he started to list off some of the good ones (including what was in them).  A lot of them sounded good!  We decided to go with the Buffalo Ranch Chicken and Spicy Siciliano, both in 12" sizes.

The food itself was definitely good.  While I probably won't get the Buffalo Ranch Chicken again (I think that I can make it myself and it was a lot of the same taste), the Spicy Siciliano was a winner.

The prices are not the cheapest (~$9 for a foot long sandwich), but the food quality is there and so is the service.

I would go back to this place if I am in the area, and I would make sure to try some of the other things that people are raving about while also probably getting another Spicy Siciliano.

I have never been to a rock climbing gym before even though I have done a couple of top rope walls over the years.  None of the climbs that I have done were too challenging.  So with that as my history with rock climbing, I started to plan a group activity here.

I called ARC a few weeks before the date of the party.  They were pretty chill and were willing to answer any of my questions.  The gist of their group rate (as of this review) is that it is $25/person for the first 10 people, $20/person for the next 10 people, $18/person for the next 10.  They have a "party room" that is really just probably less party and more utility room.  You get this room for 2 hours.  All of the necessary equipment is included, and you also get staff that will stay with your group to belay you, help you, etc.  So I put my $100 deposit down.

The day of the party, I got there about 45 minutes early just to check things out (since I had never been there before).  They were pretty friendly in explaining that everyone would just fill out their waiver (which interestingly enough includes a clause about their lack of helmets) before they got their gear.  The climbing itself was pretty enjoyable.  We started on their (admittedly limited) top rope courses just to get us going since many of us had never been.  We then made our attempts at bouldering, which was much more difficult.  It was made even more difficult because many of us already had expended much of the strength of our forearms on the top rope courses!  Nevertheless we had the bouldering, there was a huge rope ladder, a single knotted rope to climb, and even a rope swing.  It was not too crowded.  I would say that there were about 10 people there besides us.

Overall the staff were pretty friendly.  Since we had over 20 people, it came out to be about $22/person ($25 * first 10) + ($20 * second 10) + (18$ * remainder).  They did not charge for the people in the party who were not climbing.  It seemed reasonable enough to me.  I think that a good many of the people were a little bit surprised that the building was only a couple of stories tall, but it seems to make sense since the majority of the walls are bouldering without a belay.  As a first time rock climber, I would not hesitate to try it again.  

It is a little bit pricey compared to other activities, it's definitely physically challenging, and it is even really rewarding when you are able to do things that you had no idea that you could do.

As long as you know what you're getting yourself into with the Furniture Outlet, you should be able to come away with a pretty good experience.  That is, up front I should tell you that their customer service leaves much to be desired, and you will likely be slightly on edge until you have your furniture in hand (or under butt).

As you can easily gauge from the other reviews, the prices are the key here so if that is what you value then make sure to stop by.  I got a top-grain leather match sofa for under $600 out-the-door here, which is pretty good if you have done any sofa shopping lately.  Especially when top grain leather sofas are going for over $1500 around the corner at Bassett!

When you walk in you are greeted by a smallish showroom sitting inside of a warehouse.  It's not the most appealing showroom, but it could definitely be worse.  You can walk around and check things out, and it will likely take awhile before a salesman will even ask you if you need any help.  Like I said, customer service isn't tops.  There are guys sitting behind desks seeming to do other work and seeming to be too busy for you, a mere customer.  Don't let it faze you because you know that you will always be able to torch them in your Yelp review.  After giving a cursory look through their stock, you might as well concede that you're going to be looking through the many furniture catalogs that they have.  Unless you are quite fortunate, you are most likely going to be ordering from those catalogs.  

I mainly looked through the Coaster catalog, which is a furniture company that makes its stuff overseas and is sold in other stores as well.  I found a sofa that I liked by only using the descriptions and features listed.  It is definitely tough to gauge since there is not "butt test," but in hindsight it was doable.  I was able to bargain a bit on the price, and we settled on a deposit.  I was informed that they should get the sofa within a week since Coaster had it listed in stock.  (Coaster is headquartered in Santa Fe Springs, CA.)  You will also have to sign a rather poorly put together terms of service that include clauses about returning and service.  The big clause in my opinion is that you essentially have 72 hours to make any type of claim about the delivery quality before that piece of furniture is yours (and Furniture Outlet is off the hook).

Anyway I spent the next few days eagerly waiting and hoping that this transaction was going to end well.  I had to make some follow up calls, including calls the day that I was hoping to pick up the piece to confirm that they had indeed received it.  They finally told me that they had it so I headed over.  I finished the transaction with them, and then went to go get the piece.  Frightening to me was the fact that they could not find my piece for at least 5-10 minutes!  And this was after I had signed off that I had received the piece as I was closing the transaction with them.  Fortunately (very fortunately actually) my worst fears were not realized, and they did find the piece in the loading dock.  

I made it a point to not inspect it there because they said that if I did then I would not get the 72 hours to inspect it at home.  So I loaded the packaged couch onto my truck, went home, unpacked it, assembled it (very small amount of work), and meticulously went over the piece.  I found some things that were not optimal, but nothing that warranted a return of the piece.  So I sat down and was content to finally have the sofa under my butt.

The 2 stars that I docked were mainly for the customer service experience(s), and the pretty intimidating terms of service.  But I think that if you know what you're getting into then you will be much better off.

If you park in the Redondo Pier parking structure just walk down the steps and walk along the pier towards Quality Seafood.  You will be able to identify it because it is usually bustling with people.  In fact, there are all kinds of people there.  For some reason there are a disproportionate number of Koreans, some thrill-seeking foodies, a fair amount of Mexican families, and even some people who (very surprisingly) will look down on those eating live urchin even as they're eating their killed crab.  There are all kinds of people here so don't even be surprised at who you'll find.

The workers that are serving the seafood are generally helpful and friendly (although it seems that some of the workers, namely those serving drinks, are slightly overworked or stressed).  

The seafood is most definitely fresh from what I could tell.  We had fresh (not live mind you) dungeness crab for $9.99/lb, sea urchin for $7.99/lb, and a bowl of clam chowder in a bread bowl for a shade under $7.  I would definitely have the crab again, and I would probably go for some fresh fish if I went again.  If you're going for the first time it's pretty amusing eating the live urchin and having little kids point at you telling their parents that they want to eat urchin, too.  Oh and don't forget to ask for butter and lemon if that's how you like your steamed crab.

The cleanliness of the whole establishment is generally as expected.  I mean, it's half fish market!  The tables are not the cleanest, but it's about par for what you'd expect for outdoor seating at a pier in my opinion.  Be greedy for that crab meat, making sure you get every last piece.  But share a table with a stranger because there's no need to be greedy for your table.  :)

I want to keep this quick and to the point so that people will read it.  Went here on a Friday during lunch with 5 co-workers in order to watch France vs Uruguay at around 12:20 PM.  We were seated at a covered pool table because it was pretty crowded, and one of the workers warned us that it would take 30-40 minutes for food.  Anyways it took a little while (~5 min) for them to even bring us a menu let alone get some drinks for us.  It didn't take too much longer after that to order our food.  So we had our order in at around 12:30 PM.  

We spent the next hour watching the game (which wasn't very exciting) and sipping our drinks.  No food.  We just kept getting hungrier.  Finally at 1:30 PM the waitress comes and apologizes.  By that time we were starting to get pretty upset with the situation because:

1) We were hungry
2) We needed to go back to work
3) There was nobody helping us this whole time
4) Another group that arrived after us had just received their food

In any case, she claimed that our order was accidentally pushed to the back.  Now, whatever happened with the order does not really matter (although I would be curious to know what actually happened to it).

From this point on it only gets worse.  She keeps coming back to us every 5 minutes telling us that the food will be out shortly.  Yeah right, lady.  Finally she brings the check out BEFORE the food and then proceeds to tell us that she's going to try to get us a discount.  She goes to find the manager (or whatever) and comes back in another 5 minutes telling my co-worker that if it was 2 more minutes they would take 25% off of the check, and she said that she'll make sure that it takes 2 minutes 1 second.  Uhh...are you kidding me?  Do I really want your $10 burger for $7.50 after you've made me wait so long.  Thank you for the privilege, but no thank you.  The only way that I wanted that food was if it was comp'd, which was maybe the LEAST that they could have done.

Suffice it to say that we walked out at that point.  We were hungry and definitely fed up with this place.  I would not even entertain the thought of going here again.

Is the food good?  I have no idea, it hasn't arrived yet.  They must still be working on it.

After going to Roger Stuart down the block to look for a suit, this store was a much better experience.  Comparatively, it at least seemed like they wanted my business.

As some background (since this is a separate review from Roger Stuart) I was going with a group so that we could buy suits for a wedding.  All told we were slated to get 5 suits, 4 of which were going to be matching.  So since it was a larger purchase, we were taken upstairs to the warehouse section of their store.  We were measured pretty quickly and the salesman ("PJ") went off to find some suits for us.  We tried on jackets up there, and we ended up with some decent suits (4 solid black and 1 black on black striped).

We headed down, and we proceeded to look around for shirts and ties.  While we only ended up leaving with 1 tie, it still seemed like a relatively painless experience.

As you can expect at almost any retail store, the markup on the clothes on the floor is huge.  However, the best part about this shop is the opportunity to bargain.  Unlike department stores (or other more established stores) you can try to finagle extras here and lower prices there to end up with a price that is pretty palatable.

I am not a suit expert, but for less than $150 for each suit (for 5 suits), we were satisfied with the purchase.  It's not as cheap as some of the other retailers around the fashion district hawking 2 suits for $99, but I think that you can still find a satisfactory experience as well as some dandy well-priced suits.

Located in the Fashion District of Los Angeles, this suit store has been around for quite some time.  While before it was one of the few stores that one could get a decently made suit at a reasonable price, there are now countless places at which to do your suit shopping business.

When you walk in you are greeted with a rather dated interior.  Initially you need to be buzzed in, and I am sure that they installed the buzzer on the door so that they did not have to let everyone in.  You are then greeted by racks of suits as well as the expected salesmen.

In my experience, I was fortunate to have a rather unpleasant fellow for a salesman.  I wish that I had gotten his name because he needs to be put on blast for how awful he is.  In any case, if you find a hunched old (I am guessing) Jewish salesman, let me get his name so that he can have it proclaimed to the Yelp masses.

So as a background, I was going there as part of a group because we were buying for a wedding party.  That obviously means that the suits will need to match each other.  But that also means that it's a big sale because that is a whole bunch of suits at once.  Here are some reasons for why my mysterious salesman is such a horrible salesman:

   1) He could not even fit us properly.  He measured us and gave us our sizes.  Unfortunately they were not even correct.  He gave us jackets to try on, and he was wrong on the majority of us.  When we tried the jackets on he seemed to think that they looked just fine.  However opinions from other people there were quite contrary to this.
   2) He was not helpful.  In that entire store, he told us that he only had a single suit that he can get the same for the whole group.  We asked to see other suits and styles, but he seemed to think that an outrageous thought.
   3) When I was looking at the 38R section (even though he measured me at a 40R), he thought that I was looking at the huge sizes.  He asked why I was looking in that section, and I told him that I had tried on a suit that was 38R that looked better.  This seemed to offend him, and he retorted that I could do whatever I wanted to.  Well thanks, bud, I will!
   4) He was mocking one of the guys in the group who wanted a size larger than what the salesman had measured him at.  Yeah, that's going to drum up the business.

On top of all of this, the prices were not even cheap.  I could do better (with an amazingly better experience I am sure) at a department store.  So I gain absolutely nothing by going to Roger Stuart.

Maybe if the salesman was helpful, I could give him some credit.  Or maybe if he was just simply nice, I could say that about him.  But he was the worst of all possible aspects.  He was rude, incompetent, and crotchety.

I am surprised that we stayed in the store for as long as we did.  Obviously, though, we did not make any purchases.  I don't know why the experience was so bad.  It could have been just that salesman.  It could have been a bad day for him.  Or maybe we can just chalk it up to some good old fashioned racism (we were all Chinese).

Am I ever going to go back?  No way.  Was it worth the time to come onto Yelp and write a bad review?  Oh for sure.  In fact, I probably should have made it nastier to compensate them for this memorable experience.