Guitar Center — Attraction in Emeryville

I've literally never felt so disrespected and disregarded as a customer. Ever. This is not an exaggeration. I'll try to keep it short. However, there's quite a bit that happened that I feel potential customers should be aware of.

I called the Emeryville Guitar Center the day before my visit to inquire about their buying policy and to try to get a general idea of what I could expect to sell my items for. I was informed that as long as I arrive at the store AT OR BEFORE 8PM(an hour or earlier before closing), they would be able to help me.

I drove almost an hour and a half, from healdsburg to Emeryville, and arrived at 7:45pm, believing I had given myself plenty of time.

As soon as I walked in the door, the lack of awareness and indifference were shocking, to say the least. I would think the three big guitar cases I was lugging would have been an indication that I might need some assistance. However, I stood at the front desk for at least 10 minutes while one employee had a casual conversation with a man that CLEARLY was not going to purchase anything. Another employee approached the front desk, intentionally avoided eye contact, and then walked away again.

I was only greeted when I interrupted their conversation to ask who I should speak to about selling my guitars. This is when I met the REAL winner. Robert, I believe his name was. He said," well, we usually stop buying at 730. I mean 745, so..."

I told him that I was told they stopped at 8pm, to which he replied, "::sigh:: ok well we're short staffed so it's gonna be a minute." I said that was not a problem whatsoever.

For the next 30-40 minutes, I sat quietly waiting to be helped. During that time, the employees assisted folks who had arrived after me, had casual conversations amongst themselves, and blatantly ignored me sitting there.

Eventually, when Robert ran out things to pretend to do, he began doing God knows what on the computer, while I sat 5 feet away waiting to be acknowledged. When I approached him saying, "so.....you think you can take a look at my guitars now?"

He literally said,"welll, it's pretty late. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest you come back tomorrow."

That's when I politely informed him that that was unacceptable because I drove over an hour to get there, and I also made it a point to arrive before 8pm.

He replied," dude, you got here at, like, 755, bro. Over an hour? Where'd you come from? Is this the closest location to where you live?"

I said that everything he just said was completely irrelevant, as I arrived BEFORE the cut off time.  And he said, "I've still got other things I have to do. I don't have time for this"

Just so you know, I am not embellishing this at all. This is verbatim.

At that point I was so shocked with how he was treating me that I said, "other things to do? Like what? Isn't this your job? Isn't this something for you to do also?"

He said, again, verbatim," no. Not really. You're not my boss bro. Whatever, what do you have? We probably don't even want it." While he said this, he aggressively grabbed one of my cases and yanked it up and let it drag along the corner of the counter. Absolutely no regard for the condition of my guitar. When I pointed out how careless he was being with my property, he said "you know what, bro? I'm just gonna reject them. We don't want them," and proceeded to walk away.

I was so appalled and offended by the way I was treated. And if management believes I've exaggerated this experience in any way, I fully encourage you to watch the security footage on Thursday, Oct. 3rd. It is my honest belief that the employees that worked that evening need to be re-trained on how to deal with your customers. I will never come here or any other guitar...

Clean store, COVID-aware, store music is at a healthier level than most clothing shops. Service is incredible — s/o to Jeff and Trace for their super attentive and quick help! I literally could not have asked for more, these folks went above and beyond to make sure I had what I needed.

I bought a mic realizing it wasn't USB and would require an XLR cable and interface. The mic arrived on the day of the podcast interview I needed it for. I originally made an online pickup order because I for whatever reason didn't realize that the store was open. With two hours left before my interview would start, I decided to call the store up to see if they could help. Jeff, a manager, picked up the transferred call ASAP and they explained that yes, they were definitely open and offered to hold onto the interface I needed (which had only 1 available). He also explained the online ordering process and that depending on the payment method, that the pickup order would take several hours to a day to process. So I got all the answers I ever needed.

When I arrived to the store, hand sanitizer was available at the front. I beelined to the XLR cable section and went through the options which were mostly pretty expensive for my needs. Trace came over and asked if I needed help, so i told him I was looking for a cheap XLR cable. 15 seconds later he had it in his hand (didn't see where they were stocked) and at the register. He remembered the hold that I had on the interface, and completed my purchase incredibly quickly. He also wanted to know if I needed help cancelling the online order. The site doesn't seem to easily allow order cancellation so he made sure to get that quickly done for me as well in under a minute and sent me on my way.

This Friday the 13th I ran into an issue where my computer didn't boot first thing after I rushed home. But I was still able to make it to my interview in the nick of time with all the equipment set up on a backup PC, and it wouldn't have been possible without the top-notch service and quick actions of the staff here....

I really like this guitar center. I've bought 2 used amp heads, a guitar and a few pedals here. I've also had my guitar serviced here.

The staff is really great. I once got scammed by GC corporate (bought a used head for $440, turned out to be a lemon, GC would only refund $320 even though I only had the amp for a week and purchased the protection plan), and the manager gave me her business card and told me my next amp was $120 off.

Their guitar selection isn't exhaustive, but you can find what you need. If you have a specific guitar in mind, it's much better to order off the GC website and have it delivered to the store. That being said, if you don't care about the specific model or paint job of a guitar, you can find it here (they have plenty of Les Pauls, strats, teles, etc. across price ranges).

I wouldn't recommend getting your guitar repaired here. One time I had a guy basically poke my guitar with a soldering iron and charge $40. He did a pretty bad job as the solder ended up touching two connections and messing my signal up again. Lesson learned: I bought a soldering iron and spent a couple hours on YouTube, now I don't have to deal with cheap tune-ups again.

One suggestion for this location: get a wider variety of instruments for rent. I was recording recently and needed a guitar that day. All they offered we're strats, but nothing with humbuckers.

Living in the Bay, we do t really need to buy new musical instruments; there is a massive market for used instruments here. That being said, this location is a good resource for used...