It's a bit long, but very detailed. Hopefully you will take 3 minutes to read through.
I went today for my very first time. Received a 20 40% off coupon for my first time once I enrolled online. The two other ladies were there seem to be regulars, one of them mentioned that they give good pedicures here. I did a regular pedicure with callous removal, and I wanted a regular manicure, nothing fancy. I asked them beforehand how long it would take, I was told it would take 1 hour.
It took 45 minutes for the pedicure to get done, and then the manicure started. I was a little surprised, because there are eight ladies working in the shop, and by then the other two clients had already left. I was the only client there! There was one girl working on my request, the other seven were keeping themselves busy on their phone, their laptop, and one of the girls was getting a pedicure herself at one point. Truly surprising, because I've been to other shops with much less staffing, and when they have a client who's getting a manicure and pedicure, one of the other girls will generally come to help do the mani, at least get it started, clean up the cuticles and what not. The two salons I visited prior to moving here, both had owner/managers who themselves would come over to start off the mani. But none of these employees even seemed interested in doing that.
Then the girl who was doing my pedicure started to do my manicure, and I mentioned her that she was not giving enough time in between the coats for the coats to dry adequately. She kept insisting that the quick coat would dry everything instantly. I know from experience that that quick coat never works like that. After the manicure I sat under the fans for 23 minutes. As I was leaving, one of the nails was damaged. She had to then spend another 17 minutes doing two more coats back to back after cleaning the nail off,, once again not leaving adequate time for drying. On the way out the door, I was told to come back if there were any other issues. I live 5 minutes away, and as I walked into the house, one of the nails on the hand that was not damaged got damaged. I have attached a picture.
I'm in two minds as to whether to go back. Because I really don't have 2 hours to sit around and get things done. I had to cancel an appointment because instead of taking the 1 hour that they said they would, they took two. And I was a little taken aback when asked where I lived, and they guessed one of the lower income towns nearby, maybe because I'm not Caucasian? I don't know. I never used to be sensitive to those things, and probably went through the first 40 years of my life with blinders on. But nowadays, it has been pointed out to me time and time again that there is a subtle racism that occurs for brown people. So I don't know if I will go back. If I do, it will probably only be for a pedicure, and probably never again for a manicure.
And lastly, it is a very nice and clean place. Beautiful crystal chandeliers, and probably a dozen pedicure chairs. But somehow I got the chair that's broken, so I could not enjoy the massage. And while I was there for the extra hour that I was forced to stay, the TV also stopped working. So I just had to listen to the chatter of the seven ladies talking to one another, in Korean. I really wish I was fluent in Korean, I would have liked to have known what they were saying.
All in all, a mixed bag. Which is why I'm giving it three stars. I thought it would be much better experience with a 4.9 star rating, but I was disappointed.
Update: Just added a third photo, 39 hours later, which includes two nights that I slept, over two days off from work. Manicure didn't really last very long, I guess that's the quality of their nail polishes. Very disappointing, and in retrospect clearly a waste of my money for having done the manicure.