I'd like to preface this review by stating that this review does not involve the actual contracting work from Keystone Kitchens (based on other Yelp reviews and a referral, I'm sure they do wonderful work). Rather, this account is based on my experience with their sales staff. All of it could just be plain old bad luck, so don't let this put you off doing business with them, but rather if you recognize the same pattern in your dealings, you might want to avoid wasting any time.
I have a pretty standard apartment kitchen that I wanted to renovate (cabinet doors replaced, and quartz countertop installed). We didn't know exactly what we wanted yet, other than chocolate brown cabinet doors. A member of their staff came to take measurements and came back with an estimate of $15,255. We felt this was a reasonable price, so we decided to go to the store to select the materials (expecting that the price might increase some based on our selections).
When visiting the store, the person working didn't have any ideas on what materials we were quoted for, and just presented a whole bunch of different woods and quartz with no pricing. After pushing back a bit and asking what style they generally quote for, she managed to narrow it down to some mid range woods and quartz, so we attempted to select something close to that.
After our visit, we received an email stating that there would actually be a 0.5% condo surcharge that wasn't accounted for initially. I had never heard of a condo surcharge. Given that 0.5% of $15,255 is only $76, I decided not to push back too much, but wasn't entirely sure why it was even a line item at that price. A follow up email came with the new price, $17,641 which is a $2386 jump from what we were initially quoted, yikes! I pushed back asking why there was such a large price difference, and I was told the condo surcharge, getting stained wood (note that from the beginning we told them we wanted a dark wood) and our selection of quartz.
At this point I wanted to see what exactly we're paying $2386 for, so I asked the sales person to let the shop know what the original materials was that I was quoted for. She came back and apologized in that she made a mistake with the condo surcharge, it wasn't actually 0.5%, but rather 5%. I can see how dealing with decimals and percentages could get confusing so I let that go, but still wanted to see what she initially quoted us for. I then got another email stating that she made a mistake in entering our details, and that the price is now actually down to $16,034 for our selection (much more in line with what I was expecting). My wife still wanted to double check the wood selection.
I then asked about getting a quote for getting a separate bar top replaced with quartz, at which point I got a response back saying that the fabricator informed them that he missed some counter top footage and that there would be a price increase (hopefully not much). I don't believe there's anything complex or hidden about our countertop. She told us she would get back to us with the price increase before our shop visit.
The morning of our second shop visit, I got another email saying the new pricing hadn't come through yet, but a contract was included to get our wood cabinet doors done, and that she recommended we sign that and then they can do the countertop as an addendum. I turned down the offer and said I'd like to see final pricing before signing anything.
The final price came back at $17,191 excluding the bar top (so no spec changes on our side). I told them I'm willing to sign for their initially quoted $16,034, outlining their long list of pricing errors and which point they said they don't negotiate. Thank God I didn't sign the wood cabinet door contract!
At the end of this, I'm still not sure if this was bad luck, incompetence or a deliberate bait and switch. If you do decide to deal with Keystone, walk away if you start seeing anything like the above happening.