Papa Ben's Train Place — Local services in Southside Place

I cannot begin to describe the act of generosity Papa Ben's displayed last Saturday. I am working on building a Christmas train layout for the Veterans Housing complex in Midtown. I visited Papa Ben's simply to ask for a broken down locomotive and perhaps one car plus a section of track for illustration purposes. This would allow potential sponsors to envision what I have in mind. As I was leaving, one of the gentlemen approached me with a box. It was a Bachmann Empire Builder N Scale complete set! I told him that such a product was far out of our reach. He then responded by telling me it was a gift. How do you describe the gratitude I felt. While not specifically a Christmas Train, it's actually better for demonstration purposes in many ways. If this happens to be your hobby, please give Papa Ben's an opportunity to earn your business. The photo with no Train is actually three banquet tables lined up to show a possible 18 foot long layout. The ultimate configuration has yet to be finalized. I have also acquired an extremely large pizza box courtesy of Gotham Pizza in Midtown to assemble a small/portable demonstration layout. Thank you for patronizing Papa Ben's...

Just experienced probably the two rudest gentlemen in customer service. I have a three year old son who loves trains and the thought of going to a train store made his day. He was so excited. My parents drove him out to the Bellaire store all the way from Magnolia. Once they arrived my mother was immediately approached by one of the site clerks to be warned not to touch anything. She then carried my son and walked around the store. A few minutes later the other gentleman informed them to be careful because everything is very expensive and if you break it you buy it. I'm not sure if the store owner was present that day but your two employees just lost you around $500 in sales in one day. They should understand that this is an older generation very niche market. Maximizing the customer experience for a child should be a must. Sending my son home crying. Just be lucky I...

Not a place for kids...they aren’t welcome. We entered the store and received no hello, much less an acknowledgment. They were very unpleasant, trite and short with answers. A lot of things aren’t priced and you have to take it to them to get the price....which they act like is putting them out. These men don’t view their merchandise as toys suitable for children. They honestly don’t want to sell to people with children. Our first visit, we bought over $800 worth of merchandise and all they would say is,”they will break them”. We know this, but it isn’t any of their business if I want to buy it and take it into the parking lot and crush it with my car tire. What’s it to him?!?! Don’t waste your time. Go where you are welcome. We walked out and left our items on the counter because of their...