SoLo — Attraction in Solana Beach

TLDR: Wonderful curation, awful customer service. I was having a perfect afternoon with a short run and decided to browse around and buy some Taschen books to fill my new bookshelf. There was a page in the book I picked up where a family friend’s pottery workshop in Japan was featured, so out of genuine pleasure I took TWO (2) pictures out of the page and was in the process of sending it to the said friend. The shop attendant hurried over to me and said I was, verbatim, “taking an awful lot of pictures” and insisted I purchase the book.

I find this encounter very unpleasant and shady. If the store had no picture policy in place and she wanted to gently remind me, that’s one thing, and I would have appreciated the reminder. However, I didn’t see any sign and saw many other customers taking pictures of whatever the hell they find cute and inspiring and I was the only one approached. I wonder if me being young, non-white, and in workout clothes in a dominantly white neighborhood signaled to the attendant I must not be there to spend money. Well, they lost a BIG chunk of potential sale. I was in fact texting (to invite more local friends to the freaking store, which I quickly took back after the incident) while I was browsing several different books, so she could have mistaken me for taking pictures of every single book. Even then, for the attendant to claim I was taking “an awful lot of pictures”, I wonder for how freaking long I was under her surveillance watching my every single move. I’m a good faith customer who was ready to spend and I don’t appreciate such treatment.

It’s unfortunate to see a store with wonderful curation doing so poorly on customer service. Will take my...

We were visiting from LA and the impressive wide open storefront caught our eye. I came in around 4:15pm browsing through some coffee table books and discovered their children’s section. A few minutes later I was being followed around by the staff as they made me aware of the fact that their store was closing. I had no idea because the store sign said closing time is 5pm and it was only 4:30. Anyway I gathered my two items and proceeded to pay for them and there was no thank you for coming to the store, sorry we’re closing, but please come again, no- hi, how are you? nothing. Just a very cold ringing up of the two items that I had collected. I have shopped all over the world and in even nicer pockets of SoCal but this just left a bad taste in my mouth. So eager to close on a customer that is actually trying to buy some thing during a time when hardly any stores are generating sales. Maybe because I was brown, maybe because I was there too late. Either way, I was very turned off at their customer service....

This is the place to stop in if you don't know what you're looking for but you know you want something interesting. SoLo features an assortment of stationery, home goods, gifts, and other items for the guy or gal who only think they have everything. I specifically come in for Palomino Blackwing pencils and rose gummy bears from Sugarfina, both of which can sometimes be hard to find. They're not open late so if you want to go, it'll definitely have to be a day trip, but Solana Beach offers quite a few neat places to check out in addition to this shop. On Sundays it's especially great to go since the Farmers Market is just...