2nd & Charles — Local services in Lubbock

I shopped at this location today. I spent several hundred dollars as I often do, and have been a frequent customer by both buying and selling for several years. I’ve always had a positive and enjoyable experience and look forward to browsing and relaxing.

Today was the first time I’ve had the absolute worst experience at a book store to date.

The shopping baskets were so filthy that I had to go through them to find a decent one that wasn’t caked with dried substances or had wads of hair in the wheels.

Normally we’re greeted with a pleasant “welcome to 2nd and Charles” when we walk in, but that didn’t happen. I didn’t care too much, but it was noticeably different. There were 4-5 employees behind the counter who were laughing and talking LOUDLY, and appeared to all be newer hires. The noise would have been fine, had it been for just a moment. But it didn’t stop. They were practically shouting for an hour straight and I couldn't even read the descriptions of books because it was so piercingly loud. The noise level and laughter started to make sense when my kids noticed that at least one person was vaping behind the counter and was likely high. One of the indiscreet conversations between employees was about how one of them had been reported to HR by a fellow employee (SHOCKER) and they were complaining about that person.

When it got to be unbearable and I was getting a migraine, I called the front desk from the back of the store on my cell and I was very polite and said that normally we have a quiet experience here, but the front desk is so loud it’s really hard to enjoy shopping today. The response by the female employee was, “OK,” followed by silence. Eventually they said, “Thank you!” And hung up. There was no, “I’m sorry about that,” or “thanks for letting us know, we’ll keep it down.” Nope.

It got quieter for a couple of minutes, but eventually went right back to the way it was. When we checked out, one of the women recognized my voice and started talking about me right in front of everyone.

I brought reusable bags, and the guy who rang us up was nice enough, but didn’t put a single book in a bag or wrap up any of the breakable items we bought. I had to ask someone if they could do that for us while I started bagging our books.

I left the store feeling stressed, disappointed, and regretting that I spent so much money after being treated so poorly.

If this can be addressed and fixed, I hope to give 2nd and Charles another chance to earn our business back. But otherwise, I don’t plan to...

update I am back to discuss the bathrooms again. First. I still love and adore this place. The store itself is always clean and well organized. Staff is wonderful. And the book selection is fantastic. BUT THESE BATHROOMS! They look as bad or worse than some gas station bathrooms I've been in. I went in today 8/11 and the floor was dirty. There was no toilet paper available, they just had paper towels to use. The toilet itself is dirty. The mirror is gross. And the little sign on the door says the last time the bathroom was checked was 7/24, over 2 weeks prior to my visit today. Please clean the restrooms!

I would leave a 5 star review because I truly love this store. It fills the space left by Hastings. They have a great used book selection and its always fun to go in and look around when you have some time to kill. Plus, the staff has always been super kind and accommodating which is a major plus. My one and only complaint here though is the bathrooms. They are ALWAYS super dirty and gross. Worse than a lot of the gas station bathrooms I've seen. I've been in the bathroom a handful of times and never said anything but I felt that I needed to say something after today. I went to the store roughly a month ago and had to use the restroom. I went in and started doing my business when I noticed what was obviously a dollop of human feces on the floor. I did my best to ignore it and finished up, washed my hands and left. I meant to tell an employee about it but ended up getting a phone call and having to leave without making a purchase and forgot about it. Flash forward to today and I was there with my daughter. Had to make a quick pit stop. I go in, sit down to do my business and look at that same spot and there was a dried ring of that feces I saw last time. Same spot, same size and I'm 100% sure it was from that. So that means, at best, an employee barely ran a mop over it and that was it. Now remember, its been a MONTH since the last time I was there. A public bathroom should be deep cleaned on a daily basis AT LEAST once a day. And especially with our current health situation, it should be a much higher priority to keep that restroom clean. All that aside, I will keep going to this store because I love it, I will just start to make sure I don't need to use the restroom while I'm there. I really do hope this issue will...

I had a friend who recommended the shop to me as a gold mine for a Comic Collector, but it seems like they're grinding that into nothingness. My friend had said that it was the kind of place where you could dig for an hour and pull out a couple of 10-15 dollar books for two bucks and a stack of uncommon Independents for a buck or so each. The couple of high-dollar books was your reward for digging, and selling all the Obscure nonsense books was the stores reward for discounting. It didn't really live up to that, but I can see how it might have been that way at one point. They have boxes and boxes and boxes of $0.50 to $2 comics and there are some decent books in there. You might find a $6 book here or there, but it looks like they're using the one person who understands comics in that shop to sort of torch what's great about it. So they've got one person on staff who understands that comic books aren't made out of lava rocks. They have that person sorting the books and putting them in order, which is not a bad thing. They also have him pulling any book that he thinks are high-dollar books. That's not inherently a problem, but there seems to be a disconnect with whoever is pricing those high dollar books. When I went to check out, the lady at the register had no idea that there were two short boxes of high dollar comics behind the register. When I went through the books I noticed that literally 98% of them were priced at near mint prices. They're asking like 20 bucks for a $5 book and 40 bucks for a $10 book. Given what I thought I came to Lubbock for, I was pretty nonplussed. With no reward for people digging through their books, I imagine that Second and Charles as a comic location is going to become pretty forgettable pretty quickly. If I were them I'd price every common Marvel or DC book at a dollar and every common independent book a $0.50. Just turn that product. It's fine if they want to seek appropriate value on expensive books, but price them at their grade at least! Second and Charles had a nice comic Buzz for a while, but I can't see that buzz lasting if this is how they're going to...