At Home — Local services in Lake Mary

Is it "AT Home" policy to close your registers at 9:00:00pm sharp with customers walking to the front quickly with full carts? My wife and I shopped for an hour at the Lake Mary store tonight. We had hundreds of dollars of home decor in our shopping cart. We are in the process of remodeling our home. We have been in At Home several times. Usually leaving with hundreds of dollars in merchandise. We were trying to hurry and make one last choice on some art. We put the last piece in the cart and hurried to the register. The manager watched us walking down the main isle with our cart at 8:59. I commented to him that we were hurrying to the register. He replied "No problem. Take your time." We got there at 9:01pm and walked down the long row of unmanned registers. For it to be that shut down up front I suspect they closed down the registers 5 minutes or so before that. There was simply one employee standing at the door watching us make that long walk with a smug look on her face. We stopped at the last register. She stood there saying nothing. Finally my wife spoke and asked which register was open. The woman at the door simply said "the registers are closed". My wife replied "are you telling us that we can't buy any of this?". The woman opened the door gesturing us to leave and said "Yes. The registers are closed". 9:01 pm !!!!! . I have never been treated like that at a retail store in my life. Even if that was the AT Home policy and her hands were tied, she was the exact opposite of apologetic. Both my wife and I sensed that she ENJOYED doing that to us. After all we deserved it right? I guess she showed us. We won't upset them by returning. If there was a line at the registers at 8:55 would they have just shut down the register at precisely 9:00:00pm and walked away? Unbelievable. I am presently replacing the items sitting in my carts at the locked up "At Home" store by shopping on Wayfair, Amazon, and Overstock. If I decide to go brick and mortar again it will be to Home Goods. Never again At Home!!! You must be doing really well to be able to treat loyal customers like this. At Home is 25 mins from our house. We spent a long time driving there and shopping. We take the trouble to go there because we liked (past tense) At Home. We have many other options. We will be...

Long review, I do apologize, but I've got LOTS to say! LoL

It seems this store has had a HUGE change from past year or 2. I still absolutely LOVE all of the neat home things to be found here, but I SWEAR the prices have gone up drastically on certain items. Even on 50% off Clearance, some items I found to be STILL far too expensive.. (I bought several new items there only 1½ yrs ago for another of my properties, & I don't remember paying such CRAZY prices! 🤷🏼‍♀️)

Then @ front counter, I saw these TINY cute lil hand sanitizer bottles, so I asked the price, thinking it's a perfect purse/car size (I see bigger than this constantly in local dollar stores, but I would have expected to pay slightly more.. perhaps $2, even $2.50). She says they're $4.50!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Omg, $4.50 for a TINY bottle of gelled alcohol, basically?! No thanks.

I did have FAST service when they brought out my curbside pickup another day for an outdoor bench cushion I ordered; however, I did have to immediately return it due to someone's not quite true review (The reviewer stated it was a "true navy blue", but it was more like a dark version of cerulean, & NOT what I needed.) Process to return was fairly simple & went right back onto my card, & the charge back showed up the following afternoon, which is quicker than MANY stores do when returning items.

Anyway, I did find some cute things to add to my newly remodeled 🏡 that were what I'd consider "good value for the 💰", but I DID have to search every shelf, high n low! Expect to spend several hours there if you need things for many different rooms! If you don't have any problem w/paying $450 for a small bathroom cabinet for towels, then I envy you 😅 & you'll get through the place MUCH quicker than I...

First off, I want to say I love this store. They have everything and then some for your home at good prices. Secondly I never leave bad reviews unless something inappropriate happens, which I felt it has here. My problem was the horrible blonde older Karen-type lady who yelled at me and my husband that the store was closing when I ran to get and arrived at the lane by 9:50pm, it closes at 10, and I was well aware of this, because I respect people who work in retail and I felt bad already. I dropped a bunch of loud metal rushing to get there and proceeded to wait in line. I then, WHILE WAITING IN CHECKOUT FOR AT LEAST 5 MINUTES, got yelled at "Next in line, come on! You knooow, we are closing, no more shopping or anything, let's go! Heh heh HEH!!" Looking at her coworkers laughing - they didn't, they knew I had been there - She seemed like the manager. Well if that's the case, why didn't you call me over that whole time I was waiting, huh? I was waiting there for checkout in the checkout line, standing there staring at you, waiting to be called out of respect! Excuse you?! I also noticed her being abusive to I'm assuming her employees. I have no problem with the rest of the employees, they were respectful and mature towards us. This one older lady's behavior should be reviewed, and I think she should be fired. Why don't you learn something from your younger counterparts, hmm? Destroyed my otherwise great shopping experience. My dad just died and I wanted to buy some pots for my plants for healing, you don't know me, I respected you, you bitter person, I hope you find help. Thanks a lot, didn't need that rudeness for no reason, lady!!! (btw, spent a ton of money here :/ Kinda wish...