Kings Beachwear — Local services in Surf City

Another typical beach shop that doesn’t care about the sea life that allows their business to exist in the first place. They have wild caught half living hermit crabs suffocating in a giant wire cage. Hermit crabs need humidity and heat, which none of these crabs are getting being kept that way.

The cages sold with them are brightly colored wire traps, paired with sponges that do nothing but harbor bacteria. Inside the display cage sits a giant bowl of moldy pellet food. Hermit crabs need a varied diet of protein, vegetables, and foraging items.. not pellets.

They advertise them as low maintenance pets for children by forcing them into shells coated in toxic paint. They know full well that these crabs are being sent home to suffer slow, painful deaths with uninformed parents. Even the “natural” shells they offer are coated in toxic clear sealant, every single one. When I asked if they had any uncoated shells, the employee insisted it “wasn’t toxic because she checked.” She knows it is. She just cares more about profit.

Every other novelty beach shop in Topsail has stopped selling hermit crabs because they know how cruel and exploitative the trade is. This shop just chooses not to care.

A previous review about the crabs from eleven months ago got a response from the owner that they take “very good care of their crabs”. No you don’t, and you know it. If you're going to profit off a living creature, the absolute minimum you can do is provide basic care and educate buyers on what these animals actually...

Do not go here. My two daughters went yesterday for henna tattoos. I’m not sure what they got but they may as well let me draw on them with a marker. It’s awful and they were $20 each. I attempted to call the store twice today to get a refund. The first time I was told rudely ‘they didn’t deal with that cause they weren’t there yesterday’. I asked to talk to the manager and I was told she would be in at three. I called back after three and Casey answered the phone. I told her why I was calling. She asked me to ‘hold a second’ and then left me on hold for 21 minutes. This place is a rip off. Edit to add: we went there today. The manager said there was nothing she could do. The one daughter had an emergency and smudged hers and it ended up in a mess… and she did go back and the associate said she would not charge her to fix it. I get that it was a mess and not the store’s fault. The other daughter followed any instructions she had to a tee. And these were only ones that she just happened to see on a sign on the wall that stated for them to wash off after three hours. No one ever gave her any instructions. Manager stated she didn’t wash the ink off. She did exactly as she read on the wall and washed it. Printed instructions would be super helpful since now we are stuck with this mess for who...

Stopped in here yesterday morning to purchase a few beach towels. Was headed to the beach later that day to make sure we had enough. I did not realize that another member of our party had some more. Went back to Kings later that day only to be told they don’t do refunds. They tried to say we could do an exchange. However, there wasn’t $64.16 in merchandise that I wanted or needed. There was a list of items on the document posted at the cash register and beach towels was not listed. Both I and the other woman with me tried to explain to the employee. When that was unsuccessful, I asked to spread to the manager. After waiting and waiting we finally left as no one ever came back. I’m sure if there is a response received, it may say that I left before someone came out. With exceptional customer service, you always try to make your customers happy-this includes not making them wait. As one can see by the pictures attached, the towels were not used. As a matter of fact, they weren’t even taken out the bag. I’m not one to post bad reviews, I just want others to know for the future. It was extremely disappointing as we looked forward to going there and even spoke highly to the guest that was with us on yesterday; as we’ve visited other locations...