I am always a fan of supporting small, locally owned businesses and since I live in the Walkerville area I choose to spend my dollars in and around my neighbourhood. However, this was my first AND ONLY visit to Halmo Jewellers! For starters, the door to the store was locked on a Saturday mid-day, with a note posted that said "knock to enter". I did as was instructed and eventually someone came to the door and instead of welcoming me and standing aside to let me enter, she stood in the doorway and said "what do you need"? I was put off right away but replied that I was looking for a watch battery. She then told me to go to the back of the store and wait for her. Reluctantly, I did as I was instructed. Eventually she made her way to the back counter (which was a mess by the way with stuff stacked all over it) and asked "so is that ok?" Confused I asked "is what ok?" and she said "the policy-I told you to read the policy". I then read the policy posted regarding watch batteries and shrugged and said sure. She didn't seem satisfied that I was ok with the policy so asked again and I said "would you like me to sign something to prove that I've read it?" At that point, she dropped it and proceeded with taking my watch to the back for repair. She then told me to look around as it would take about 10-15 mins despite me being the only person in the store. I then paid her in cash and put my purse on the counter on top of all of the crap to get my wallet out. Irritated, she said "please don't bump things". I was pretty over the lack of customer service by that point so just said "wow". Well I wandered through the cluttered, hoarder mess of a store with random inventory including dried flowers, silver cutlery! There was crap everywhere-still Christmas decorations up (some of which appeared to be in the process of being packed up?), despite it being a week away from Valentines Day, which one would think is a super busy time for jewellery stores, there appeared to be Easter decorations out from last year, and oddly enough, there appeared to be little, if any, actual jewellery in the display cases. The whole place was creepy-it was silent except for the chiming of the inconsistent clocks. The whole time that I was waiting there was another worker doing something behind one of the counters but at not point while I was standing there in the eery silence did she say or do anything - no small talk, no attempt at anything customer service related. Eventually, the original woman came back and handed me my watch. I walked to the front door, waited for her to unlock it, sort of said thank you and expected a "thank you for visiting us" in return but instead I got a "you're welcome" - no come again, thank you for your business, nothing...as she promptly locked the door behind me! To top it all off, the invisible wizard in the back who replaced my battery didn't even set the time on my watch - you'd think that for $15+tax he could set the correct time!
So that was my experience - suffice it to say I WOULD NOT recommend that you support this business despite the signs inside indicating it's been in business for 89 years! How I wonder????