Present Moment Herbs & Books — Local services in Minneapolis

I have been frequenting this shop since the mid nineties and loved the place. Have taken friends there over the years and they, too, loved it, becoming customers (due to the distance we live from there, not super regular customers, but customers, none the less). They used to have friendly, welcoming and knowledgeable staff. I hadn't been in 4 or 5 years and took a friend there yesterday, expounding on what a great shop, lots of herbs, books, atmosphere. I WAS SADLY DISAPPOINTED THIS TIME. I was embarrassed by how uncaring most of the staff was. I understand the concept of letting people shop and browse without hovering . However we were not even given a nod or welcome upon entering. There was no "Let me know if there is something we can help you with". My friend and I wandered around for a bit, looking at books and other items. I was looking for charcoal capsules and spent a good 5 minutes in front of the section I expected to find them. Both young lady clerks kept talking to friend/friends, ignoring both my friend and i, who were not 6 feet from them. They were so busy talking that I felt it an imposition to disturb them. After all, I can get the charcoal at my local coop in Northfield. When I finally asked for herbs, the young lady at the register, who was stull very busy ragging about something with her friend, acted as if I were an inconvenience. She still has to finish her conversation with her friend, then went to find someone who could help me. Sadly they were out of one of herbs I went there for. The gentleman waiting on me was polite enough, although not very outgoing or friendly. He did tell me who to contact and when, to find out when more was coming in. (At my business, if we are out of something a client wants, we ask their name and number and try to contact them with when the item will be coming in, to attempt to minimize the inconvenience ). My friend was treated discourteously at the check out with the books she was purchasing being casually tossed back at her. I was given a convenience store check out. No "Did you find everything you were looking for?" "Is there anything else I can do for you?" I'm not even sure she said thank you. She did give a weak smile.

I doubt I or my friend will ever go there again.

It's a shame, as they have a unique selection of books , medicinal herbs and...

Pretty decent selection but a couple major problems.

The staff have a really loose definition of respect here. Don't expect that if you call to get a quote on availability and price that it will be accurate. Apparently if you are really busy that's a good enough reason to give you false information. Very inconsiderate of people who are on tight budgets.

It's also a little obnoxious having to do something that you can do at places like Dow natural foods and the wedge on your own, which is the way up bulk items. That one's forgivable, but certainly not an advantage here. It can result in a visit that should take 5 minutes, to take up to 25 minutes or more. I appreciate the concept of slowing down and being in the moment, unfortunately we set up a society that requires much more scheduling than it did a few thousand years ago.

And then probably what I found most appalling was that they saw fit at this store which is ostensibly centered around health and wellness, to carry something called Florida water. This is a nasty soap colored seafoam green liquid that contains severa carcinogenic andl nerve toxic colorants. I would call it snake oil, but the fact is that snake oil is actually very nutritious and in truly an elixir of Health while this fake Health tonic is essentially chemical waste. You can do much better I know you can, just keep the synthetic chemicals out of your...

I would really want to rate this five stars but I just had a really frustrating situation that I do believe needs to be addressed.

I highly suggest that you all put up a notice when you have a dog reactive dog in the store to alert other potential customers who might be bringing their own in (which I have done multiple times with no issue before).

I also do not believe it's very customerly to make the customer wait outside (in the cold no less) and have a store associate pick out the piece and then try to have them pay outside the store.

I like to personally pick out my pieces. Especially since I don't pick through price or look alone - but how the piece itself resonates with me. I was robbed of that ability by the way this was handled.

Rating 4 stars because this is the first time I've had any real qualm with how I felt treated as a customer - but I do not agree with how the situation was handled because it put responsibility on me when my dog was not the one who was reactive and I didn't even know there was a dog at all because it's so dimly lit and my eyes had not adjusted yet.

I do suggest some adjustments so hopefully prevent this from happening to another...