Hot Mess Art & Pottery Studios Surf City — Local services in Surf City

This place was unfortunately dissapointing. There was issues with payment apparently (when I booked online for a birthday surprise appointment days ahead) and wasn’t told there was an issue with the payment until two hours before the scheduled appointment, where a voicemail was left to my phone that the appointment would be then cancelled. After sorting that out, and rescheduling, now a day after my girlfriend’s birthday, the making of the pottery was fine even though pricey. When we finished we were asked if glazing/painting was included (since we did just pay almost $100 just to make a small cup) and were told “no but it’s just $10” by the owner. When we returned back weeks later, after reaching out if our items were finished, (no one reached out to us first) we went to paint them. We finished painting and I assumed I would be owing $20 for said paint when to my surprise the owner tells me my total was $50. I expressed my confusion and was told “that was never the price”. I then followed up again with the owner over text expressing this confusion and feeling very mislead considering we were told it would be “$10” and then $50 at time of painting. I even included a photo of her own website booking that says it is $10 for painting. We received no response. Lastly, when we waited yet another week for them to be fired after paiting, was not contacted they were done, again, we arrived to pick them up except they werent where the finished pottery was, we had to hunt them down in a completely disorganized backroom. (Yes we did come during business hours.) Overall this experience was regrettable and I genuinely have no respect for an owner who lacks this amount of integrity with her customers. Will not be back, will not be...

Honestly tried to block out the memory of this experience until I came around to this year’s christmas shopping and was reminded of the hot mess that hot mess caused us last year. I purchased a certificate for my mom to take a private pottery and glaze class with hot mess last christmas when they were still located in Wilmington (per their website). She was super excited, and I left the date open to her so she could sign up whenever she wanted and had the certificate to use. She waited a month or two before booking, and when she reached out to make her reservation, they let her know they’d permanently moved to surf city and wouldn’t give her a refund when she stated that traveling over an hour wasn’t feasible for her (spent $150 on certificate.) Not only did it not say anything on their website about moving when I bought the certificate, but we also received no email or communication warning clients they’d be moving in the near future to a whole different city! I might understand this if you were moving locations within ILM, but when you’re moving to a whole different location pretty far from most ILM residents, you owe them communication, especially if you have a no refund policy. My mom emailed them back to get in touch about possible ways to resolve this, and they never responded, so she gave up trying to reach them. Pretty disappointing considering it would’ve been an easy fix, and the communication (or lack thereof) was unprofessional and inconsiderate. Wouldn’t expect this from a local business, especially one I would’ve recommended before this...

Pickup for me has been a HASSLE. Have taken grandkids to paint 2 times. 1st time was told could pickup items in 2 weeks. Never got text because they had home tel#. It took FOREVER for them to find items. 2nd time this afternoon. I got so frustrated waiting I just walked out and CB to see it items were found. This time I was slack in getting back for pickup due to health issues. Mattie employee this afternoon called me and advised she had found items. This is a very nice play and my grands enjoyed psinging but pickup has been AWFUL...