First City Tattoo — Local services in Monterey

I recently came in to get my first tattoo! They very kindly accommodated me even though the appointment was made with very short notice, within a couple hours later they were able to get me in. My artist was Alexander and he is an absolute rockstar! I came in with a very specific idea of what I wanted and he did such an amazing job collaborating with me to create a tattoo that I would be stoked to have on me forever. He took his time to make sure everything was just perfect and the way I liked. I was expecting it to be painful however luckily Alexander has a light hand and the pain was more or less just mild discomfort and very easy to manage. I want to give a huge thank you to him for being so awesome and giving me a tattoo I will love forever as well as a very positive and memorable...

Terrible service I would definitely not book a tattoo appointment here unless you like waiting for no one. I scheduled an appointment with David Duran at 4pm I showed up early at 3:45. I was told David was running late and would be at the shop between 5 & 5:15, I decided to hang around and wait since my daughter was getting work done by another artist. Mr. Duran finally decided he would send the other artist at the shop a text message at 6pm letting him know to tell me that he was not showing up cause he was in Santa Cruz. Must be nice to be able to waist people’s time and have no consideration. Don’t know how you stay in business David but that is very unprofessional. But again who cares right? If I could give a zero star I would. DO BETTER! Be considerate of other...

Alexander is the artist I trust with my work from here on out. I’ve been to several artists over the years, but he’s the one I keep coming back to—his lines are insanely clean, no blowouts, doesn’t traumatize the skin, and he knows how to punch color even though he’s a black-and-gray artist by trade.

He’s done almost my entire leg over the course of a year, and once that’s done, we’re moving on to my arm. He’s the only artist I’ll ever recommend.

I finally convinced my best friend to get a fun matching tattoo, and obviously we went to Alex. She’s super picky, but he took his time, was patient, and made sure she felt totally comfortable. Can’t...