Rural King — Local services in Gainesville

Gainesville location was slammed when we went in on Saturday afternoon.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised looking around to see quality, top-shelf brands. I'd always heard negative things about the store, but that's probably b/c of the individuals I heard from, more of their personal attitude & issue than the store having an issue.

Now of course RK carries a lot of lower end brands I was not real familiar with. The brands I was familiar with though I was very impressed with the pricing. When I got back home I searched the web to look for the best pricing on a couple of items that stood out to me. RK either matched the lowest price I could find anywhere or in most cases beat the lowest price substantially.

I didn't have a lot of time to look around & if you are going to check out the entire store you definitely need some quality time. It's my understanding that this stand alone building location used to be a Costco or Sam's Club, a big box store. RK had just as much if not more stuff than any of the big box stores.

So why didn't I have time, well I was on a mission. I found out thru research a week or two prior that RK is one of the only stores anywhere in the US to not only have guns in stock but to have the lowest prices on guns.

For those not familiar RK has its own gun store appropriately named RKGuns. You shop & even buy in stock guns online & then RK guns ships to the RK of your choice.

RK completes the gun transfer at zero cost to you, offer flat rate fixed price shipping for $12 bucks (you can ship quicker if you want to pay more for shipping), you fill out background check paperwork in store, then when approved you take your gun home or wait the 5 day waiting period then pick your gun up.

Normally this process probably takes 10 mins. But RK was especially busy & of course the Gun Dept was the busiest. . Seems I'm not the only one who discovered RK not only has guns in stock but they also have the best pricing. So on this day I arrived to a line 5 deep from the counter. Initially I thought I was about 20 deep but it seems a lot of folks bring the entire family to stand in line with them. I ended up being in the store for 45-60 mins.

By the time I'd left the Gun Dept, having to wait in line 3 different times I was not even about to purchase anything else as I saw the Main Checkout area had lines at least 10 deep at each open register. I had my eyes on a pair of new boots but I just couldn't do it. So RK lost out on another $100 bucks or so from me.

And that is my only gripe. You'd think RK would be anticipating the crowds. Gun Dept had 2 poor souls working & they were non-stop. No slacking I mean work up a sweat moving. I felt bad for them as Mgmt obviously dropped the ball. There were not enough Cashiers at checkout either. I guess you have to kind of expect it in the Covid world but not a lot of people were wearing masks. It felt like I was the only one other than the RK employees. I don't live in G'ville so I don't know maybe there is less to worry about there but I'd still rather feel like I'm being safer. Although I doubt that but that's for a different post. For someone like me who doesn't get out much due to some Med issues just seems like there has to be a better way & that you'd want people spending their money, but they sure didn't make it easy.

So my recommendations are to go there with a plan. Know what you need to get & get it like your shopping like a man. That is unless you have unlimited time to kill then definitely still go & I challenge you to take a look down every aisle. One thing is for sure wear comfortable shoes & prepare for a workout if you aren't used to walking much. Haha! If you are looking for a Gun the stores are mainly sold out & spread thin so for your sake to save time, money & have a greater selection I'd go on the website RKGuns & have your purchase sent to the store. That way you don't waste a trip & have to stand in line to find out they don't have what you're looking for or the only option is at least twice as much as you wanted to...

HEY!?! Didn't you just read my other review of The One Who's Name We Shall Not Speak? No, oh sorry, you looked familiar. Any way, after run in The One Who's Name We Shall Not Speak, Jim decided to hit Rual King on the way home. We walk in and WHOOOOSHHHH he has VANISHED into thin air! Yeah he can't shake me that quickly. We have been married for 20 YEARS! I know for some, you are thinking the correct, polite thing: AAAWWW!!! Yeah, oh how sweet! BUT there are OTHERS out there that KNOW the TRUTH and THOSE people are thinking, TWENTY? TWENTY, THAT'S IT, she ain't seen NOTHING YET! Silly Whipersnapper! ANYWAY he sees ANOTHER one behind THEIR counter. I saw the look on his face as I made my way over to see who he was beaming for now. It was another gun, another letters and numbers. It was all black, nothing shines, so OK! I am OFF! ON MY OWN, until his deal is done. Not wasting anytime, I am gone! I grab some miracle grow and chicken poop, UUHH that STINKS, and as I left a 20 year job at a publicly traded chicken farm, I should know. ANYWAY I realized I had not gotten a call from my husband, and wandered my way back to the gun counter. Only to find my husband patiently waiting for his background check to come back. (The night was still young) so WHOOT WHOOT I AM OFF! I find cement yard ornaments, I LOVE yard ART. And fell in love with several, but can't afford the almost $30 a piece (and I liked a LOT of them). ANYWAY long story short (yes THAT time past a while back) his patience was GONE now and I KNOW I must SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BEAST!!! Sweetly I say "Why don't I go ahead and check out so we can leave when you're ready" blinking my eyes rapidly while tilting my head. So when he saw me return with my cart full of goodies (yes I got more than chicken poop) we got stuck in the walkway because of the downpour outside. So we stood there talking to a very nice gentleman and I was looking at the cement statuary and saw MORE I wanted. Including a small elephant, which was my mother's favorite animal. Next day, Jim has to go back to Rual King. When he gets home he tells me there is something in the back seat I needed to get. Yep you guessed it, the only cement elephant they had. Oh and thank you Steve Atkins for telling me...

Horrible shopping experience yesterday. Walk inside not a single shopping cart. Walk back out, retrieve my own cart and go in. I was really only shopping for two items, the first one being a large bag of diatimaceous earth. I walk around for a bit, could not find it.So then I walked around looking for a worker to ask for help. Find located in older gentleman in the garden area.But he was helping someone else at the moment. I stood there, waiting my turn.The worker's back was to me, but he looked at me twice as did the other customer who was facing me. When he was done helping the first customer, he walked off, not even looking back at me.I called out sir, sir, sir, Sir, several times he kept walking.Finally, the other customer in his booming voice yelled out.Hey dude she needs help! The worker then turned around acting oblivious. He pointed out the display of diatimaceous earth, and I went off and got my bag. I then went looking for a big bag of deer feed. Could not find anything labled deer feed, but I know they have it. Did locate a big bag of corn so I was going to take that, but was not strong enough to lift it up into my cart. I left it sitting on the floor next to my cart.And went off, trying to find a worker to help me get it into the cart. After walking around for about ten minutes and finding no one, I got frustrated and decided I was just going to leave it there, make my one purchase and leave the store. I went up to the registers, and there was only one open with a line of about three people.I got in line behind them, and the person at the front of the line had some sort of an issue so it was taking a bit of time. Next thing I know the cashier next to this one opened up her register. Instead of taking people that were already in line, she flagged over other people that were just walking up and took all of them. POOR, POOR, POOR customer service all...