Menards — Attraction in Fridley

If you're in the store picking something up, I'm sure everything is fine. Ordering something for delivery? Save yourself the trouble, and choose another store. Or prepare to be disappointed and not have your problem resolved, let alone acknowledged. Ordered a fire pit kit for my backyard. Paid $80 for delivery. Contacted immediately because I couldnt have the delivery date I had scheduled from the website. Rescheduled. Was then told I would have to go into the store and pay an additional $10 because I wanted it delivered to my back yard, where the fire pit was going to be installed. Stopped in, paid the $10, gave them 2 phone numbers to call when they were at the house to drop off, and instructions on 2 different ways to get into the back yard. Neither pieces of information were used. Delivery was dropped out front, no phone call, no stopping to let anyone home know the driver was there, instead coming in and dropping the pallet on the farthest corner of the property from either of my gates to the back yard, and dropping it from so low that where he left it, tore up my front lawn. Have a problem with something's Menards does? Have a legitimate reason for complaining? DON'T plan on hearing from anyone from the store to resolve it. Communication was quick and easy when Menards was asking me for more money for my delivery, but as soon as it was dropped in my yard, communication gas stopped completely. I wasted my time going into the store to pay more for a special drop location. I wasted my time hauling it all from my front, which I could have done just as easily and saved myself $90 if I would have just picked it up from the store. Wasted my time asking for help and communication regarding the poor service. I waited 48 hours from my initial complaint to the delivery department for a response. Escalated it to the corporate website who 48 hours later said they would forward my complaint to the GM of this location. Now have waited another 72 hours for ANYONE to reach out to me. I have heard nothing. Don't waste your time. Find another store to get your home improvement needs from. Menards clearly doesn't care, even though their site says they're dedicated to quality...

Good selection of lumber but recent bad experience made me revise my rating. Paid $80 to have lumber delivered- wasn't given a date estimate or anything, just a call one day saying they could drop it off Friday. Noticed that some stuff was missing. Took two phone calls, nearly an hour, to get my refund. Later, noticed boards were also missing. Called store about missing boards- was told they were set aside and we could come pick them up. When we got there the next day, three of the five employees we interacted with were not wearing masks properly (i.e. not covering their noses). The boards were not where we were told they would be. After running around the lumber yard, we were directed towards a manager, who told us the boards we had been promised were out of stock. He did get us longer boards and offer to have them cut down, which was satisfactory. We had to find someone in the lumber yard to cut them, and the saw blade was very old so the cut will need to be cleaned up, but they at least fit in our vehicle. The employee tried to cut the board in half at first, so we were worried he might have messed up the cuts but they were all 12' even. We also had to return some lumber at the same time, which was much more difficult than it needed to be. The whole experience was so exhausting that we didn't pick up the few things that were on our list while we were there. Beware if you are considering a delivery- 4/9 of our items were missing or lowered in quantity, with no notice before or after they shipped. They just left it up to us to take a thorough inventory to find out what was missing. The whole reason we paid for delivery is because we didn't want to transport long boards, and we wound up having to do so, anyway. Next time I'll save the delivery fee and pick out my own lumber, and that way at least I'll know how many boards I have and I won't have to deal with the split, knotted, discolored, off-size (too narrow) and warped boards that got shipped along...

Very professional and knowledgeable staff, I've been building a new room in my basement with very little experience, and have often been in over my head, and Menards employees have been able to answer all my questions the whole way through. Here are some examples of good service I've received:

-I bought a new light fixture, opened up the installation instructions at home, and could not find the mounting bracket anywhere in the box. I took it back to Menards and returned it, and tried grabbing another one of the same, and it was also missing the mounting bracket. I asked an employee in the electrical department for help, and he was able to determine that a different part that didn't look like the mounting bracket in the instructions was actually the mounting bracket; the manufacturer had just changed to a different kind of mounting bracket and not updated the instructions. I took it home and installed it with no trouble.

-I needed a washer to repair a faucet. I brought in the old one, and could not find an equivalent one at Menards. I asked an employee, and showed me one of the same size, but I was concerned, because the one I brought in had a little lip around the edge, and the one this guy showed me did not. He assured me that it would work. I took it home, somewhat skeptically, and it worked.

-I was installing a shelf, and needed a particular screw that would be short enough not to go through the shelf, but which had a large enough head not to slip through the hole in the bracket. An employee opened up several packages of screws to hold them up to my the board and bracket I was buying, an was able to help me find exactly the right size.

The bottom line is that not only is the staff at this Menards more helpful than the employees at other big-box hardware stores I've been to, they're the most knowledgeable and professional staff that I've dealt with at any retailer...