Crock A Doodle Unionville — Attraction in Markham

I really hope someone sees this message before they go, just as a precaution because I feel like Crock a Doodle Unionville could've done a lot better.

Okay, I'll just be very honest here: The two pictures are my mug, which btw, are quite disappointing as a result. One of them shows the numbers that they wrote on the bottom of my mug without clear disclosure of any kind. The other is a sloppy glaze job. It seems that some of the paint got rubbed or scratched off before my mug was baked/fired. My friend's pottery piece had the reminants of popped bubbles in the glaze, resulting is a sort of sharp and unsmooth finish, which is literally opposite of what the glaze is supposed to do.

My biggest problem with this situation is that years ago, when I went to this same place, the quality of handling was way better. The glazing was not smudged at all and was handled with care. There were no weird spots on the bottom or sides of the pottery piece at that time. There were also no numbers written on the bottom of the piece, which means that those numbers were not absolutely entirely needed, at least at that time. My artwork has been sort of disturbed and mistreated this time, however. I won't be going back to this specific location.

To be fair though, I'm still decently satisfied with the in-store painting experience and all. The staff seem alright, despite reviews of long wait-times from other people. They were helpful although sometimes things in the store would run out of stock for a whole day...... like soap, which is honestly disgusting when you can't wash crusty paint off your hands. The prices are a bit expensive but as are those for similar pottery painting stores.

If you're trusting staff to do something for you and get it done, at the very least they should respect the stuff that you paid for and handle it with care. It doesn't matter if having numbers makes it easier to track who's is who's, it's disrespectful to...

I have been to different Crock a Doodle locations before. But this one has by far the worst customer service. We went yesterday and it was somewhat busy due to a small party of 5 kids and a few sparse customers already painting. There were three staff members and it took awhile for one to help us, which is fine. She said to pick a piece, take a seat and she would be right with us to explain what to do. So we did that and sat down. The time it took to pick a piece was about ten minutes and waiting took over fifteen which rounded to about half an hour… The one staff member who spoke with us went to work with the party. However, once she was done, she never came back to help us and hid in the back room. The two other staff members saw us sitting there with unpainted pieces waiting. The one staff member made eye contact directly at us and I raised my hand. But both staff members went to help new people who JUST arrived. We found this pretty rude, especially since the one white staff member went to help a white customer who came after my friend and I and who also came in after an ethnic family as well.

It’s not hard to give us brush sets and pencils, tell us to apply two coats and show us where the paint is. Legit takes a few seconds and the customer can have at it like in the previous locations I have been too. Needless to say, since they were so rude, we left the unpainted pieces on the table and walked out. It ruined my friend’s outing for her birthday as well since she wanted to try it. We will not be recommending or coming back to...

A lovely place to paint pottery! They are welcoming, have a large selection of paints, and the process is quick and straightforward. It does get noisy, so it’s not somewhere I’d go on a first date or to have deep conversations unless you don’t mind talking over the noise.

— They have a large selection of paints that are solid or speckled that are so easy to use, you don’t have to worry about making mistakes as you can just wipe it off and redo it. They also provide tiles with sample colours so you know what the paint will look like after it’s glazed and out of the kiln.

I appreciate that they provided plenty of brushes in various sizes. I wish the brushes weren’t so worn, as it was difficult to paint because they kept separating. They also provided Q tips and fine tipped bottles for painting finer details which turned out very useful.

I purchased a $30 bowl to paint and it definitely took the full 2 hours to complete it.

In terms of ambiance, the service was amazing. Everyone was helpful, kind, attentive, and seemed happy to be there. I was there on a weekend so it was very busy. There were so many kids around and it was rather noisy. It wasn’t a particularly relaxing activity because of the noise levels, but I know that can’t be helped by the shop and I did overall enjoy the painting process. If you’re looking for a quiet, relaxing activity, this place isn’t it on the weekends!

Overall I think the prices are very reasonable and I would recommend it if you’re looking for a nice activity to bond...