I posted this about five months ago (even longer now, since this too, is a re-post) in another forum, and I still think this way about the store.
Mystic reef is probably the best lfs store I have been to for corals in the riverside area, yes it is true that there coral tanks are nice and clean and they have a big selection, there fish section is not clean and they have a small selection. As for the service, its alright, probably having someone in there that is a little older and has good customer service skills would be better. The younger guy (don't know his name) is the one who is always helping people (in between (like ten minutes in between) other duties of the store (ie:cleaning tanks and other things that can wait till no customers are in the store), the other guy (the bigger one, older brother I guess) seems to always be on the side doing nothing, the last 3 times I've been in there he just seems to hang around, even after waiting the 15 min for 10gals of water with no other customers, (i can see that if you take a longer time to get water maybe a customer will see something he likes and buy it while he waits) but hell I don't want to wait that long to get water everytime i go there. And then when you do want to buy something and you ask a price its always different even though you asked about the same frag last week, "Do you have cash, do you have cash", thats all I here, "I can make you a deal", it like going to a used car salesman. After a while you get tired of it.
Maybe it just me, but i don't like going into a fish store and have someone try to sell me something I don't want just because they can cut me a deal on it, if I liked a certain coral and it was at a decent price i will purchase it on my own. Corals sell themselves, if i like it I will buy it.
If the guy would cut back a little on his aggressive sales techniques I guarantee he would sell more corals. even if he can "cut you a deal" or not
Even though I don't like the sale's techniques at the store it still has a good selection, so I decided to go back a few within the last few months, I really wished I didn't waste my time.
The second time going there I made a special trip out of my way to stop by, it was about 4pm on a friday, when I got there they were closed, no sign or note saying they had to close early or anything, their posted hours stated that they didn't close untill 6 (or 7, cant remeber the exact time, but anyways they were closed before they were supposed to be)
not wanting to hate the store for something out of their control, (maybe there was a family emergency or something) I decided to give them another chance.
So about a month later I was in the area and stopped by again, I got there around the same time as last, can't remeber what day of the week it was, anyways there was a group of six people standing by the front of the store, I went for the door and it was locked, they closed early again!!! so I stopped to talk with the people outside, and ask whats the deal, they had been waiting for a half an hour, hoping that maybe the employees had gone for some food or something and would be back soon, so I waited too for about another half hour, and talked with the other customers.
I come to find out that one of the guys who was waiting had called the store before he came down, he drove out from redlands, to trade in some corals for credit. He had called ahead of time to make sure they would be there and that they would accept the trade, they said, sure come on down we will be here till closing (6 or 7pm) So bassically Mystic Reef let some guy drive all the way out from redlands with corals just to screw him over.
This was B.S. and the last straw, I will never waste my time going there again.
IMOP not the way to run a buisness.
