thrown elements pottery — Local services in Wheeling Township

We were excited to paint pottery here and support a local business, but had a very frustrating experience.

We didn't realize it was a day Santa was visiting, so the place was packed with lots of kids and impatient parents. We felt bad for the overwhelmed staff, but received poor customer service. A staff member gave us a quick run through of the process, neglecting to mention that my friend had to use paint instead of glaze for the pieces she picked. This was not mentioned anywhere on signage or near the pieces she picked. Staff were constantly coming by to "check in with us" (aka, when are you going leave so we can give your table away), and at no time did they point out that she was using the wrong process. We only found out days later when a staff member called to say they couldn't fire her pieces and that they couldn't do anything to compensate for their mistake. We had spent more than an hour there and my friend was understandably upset that she essentially wasted her time. She lives a couple of hours away, so it wasn't like she was going to come back to remake her pieces. It was only after a second phone call that they agreed to refund her money.

As I mentioned, staff were constantly hovering, urging us to finish up as fast as possible. We felt bad for a grandmother and granddaughter who were sitting next to us. They were even more harassed, even though they came in after us--the woman made a couple of comments to us about how frustrating it was to be rushed out.

All in all, it was clear that the staff was prioritizing families visiting Santa over customers who came in to do other activities. We ended up spending more money than many of the Santa customers, so I'm not sure why we were chopped liver while they were treated like star customers.

Last but not least, while we were paying the staff member checking us out made us come around to his side and watched over our shoulders to see if we tipped. I felt pressured to give more money than I would have, especially given our experience and the fact that there was already a $5 fee on top of the cost of each item we painted. It was very unprofessional and uncomfortable.

Maybe on a slow day the experience would have been better, but I don't think either of us will...

I really wanted to like this place more but unfortunately I had a mixed experience at this pottery… I recently hosted my daughter's birthday party here, and while we had some enjoyable moments, overall, I found the experience to be somewhat disappointing. I love this place since it’s local and very cozy and it offers lots of things to do both for kids and for adults. However, the primary letdown was the staff's lack of friendliness. From the moment we arrived, it felt as though we were just another group passing through, rather than valued customers. The staff members seemed disinterested and detached, making minimal effort to engage with the children or assist with the painting process. We had a party of 12 kids and at least half of the names were misspelled! It would be okay if the names only went on the children’s name tags but later when I picked up the pottery pieces, I found out that the names were also written on the pottery pieces the kids painted 🤦‍♀️ The staff’s lack of enthusiasm dampened the party atmosphere, leaving a somewhat lackluster impression on both the kids and the adults. I would have appreciated a warmer and more attentive...

I literally only gave them a star cause I was able to make my bowl. Otherwise I had such a poor experience with this company. When I left they told my group I didn’t pay for my part of the session and had left. Which wasn’t true because I was one of the first persons from my group to pay. But they have poor communication and organization so they couldn’t find my payment and made someone from my group pay a second time. Then when I went to pick up my bowl (drove 40 minutes btw), because I was sent communications that it was ready from Thrown, I open my bag just to find it wasn’t mine. They mixed me up with another person. But why couldn’t they just keep the group I was with all together? It wasn’t many of us there that day.

I just had such a bad experience I had to share. I wouldn’t recommend. It isn’t worth it you could probably find somewhere better with more...