I was recommended to come to Gold Coast by a close friend. It was my first tattoo and so I went. The artist I dealt with was Rick. Now as I knew nothing then about getting tattoos, I was quite shy in my attempts to explain what I wanted. He drew up a design, which was okay. I asked for an 'antique' color scheme--and ended up with red and blue and gold. Now, the work he does is lovely. I have tried since the day I met him to be nothing but friendly, engaging and willing to work with him.
Unfortunately, he has been consistently rude, dismissive and condescending every time I spoke with him. He was wonderful to my friend--because she's very very pretty and he's friends with her husband. But I thought I would talk to him again about another piece because maybe it was just me. I was polite, complimentary--every time I interacted with him--so maybe I was doing something unconsciously.
So we are discussing my idea, I wanted something with organic and inorganic elements. He tells me that that is not 'art' and it doesn't 'work'. Well, last time I checked, sir, I'm paying you--not the other way around. So what you consider 'art' is not what everyone considers 'art'. But we managed to work something out. Okay, cool. I put down a $160 deposit on the piece.
I come back a week later so that Rick can take a print of it. He asks me for a $60 deposit. It all would go towards my tattoo in the end, so I paid that.
I arrive to get it--my appointment has been cancelled. Oh. Huh. Why? He vanished off to some convention and I was promised that he would contact me as soon as he got back. I left a couple messages---and I got nothing in return for a month.
Then, out of the blue, he sends me an email telling me that he doesn't want to do my piece anymore because he heard I might be leaving soon for medical reasons. Â And he didn't feel like putting all the work into it. I was rather stunned--one, because there was no way he should have known ANYTHING about my medical issues and did not feel like he had to disclose WHY he knew that information. And two--seriously? Really? You cancel my appointment without notice, go to some convention for a week, jerk around for a month and your first contact is to tell me you don't feel like it?
Okay, fine. I ask about my deposits. He tells me he would rather keep the money in-house because it would be better for his 'books'. I tell him I don't really care about that and I go by the shop. He gives me $60. I ask about the $160 I already had on it. He says he doesn't know anything about that. And there's no way he would have taken a $160 deposit. So I went home, found the receipt and brought it back. Rick tried to tell me that it didn't "prove anything"--but after some tense words were exchanged, he finally refunded my money.
So, forget this guy--I could have just blown it off. But this next bit was the icing on the cake.
I go to another tattoo shop called Earthbound Tattoo. I take an idea to Noel, who creates a beautiful piece for me. I get it and I put the pictures of it on Facebook.
To my surprise, i find that Rick has come and commented on those pictures with this: "What the hell?? That's a strange thing to do?? Guess I didn't do a good job on that compass after all?? Hmmmm?"
I have been nothing but gracious to this guy. Every chance I got I tried to compliment the work he did. Told him how much I liked it. But apparently if I don't bow down and act like he walks on water--I'm the one being a jerk? He REFUSED to do the piece I brought to him after jerking me around for two months. Every time I spoke with him, he was dismissive, rude and made me constantly feel stupid and I was patient. But that made me really angry. Who does he think he is? He doesn't have exclusive rights to anything I want to get tattoo'd.
Thanks but no thanks, jerk. I'll take my money elsewhere. There are PLENTY of shops in Monterey where I can get tattoos. You are not the only good artist here. Because yes, the work that Rick does is lovely. It's very good--but his attitude is extremely ugly. I want nothing more to do with this place. I'll never come here again.
I went to Gold Coast for a rather large piece. Â Original appointment (scheduled teo weeks out) was for a Saturday. Â I showed up and the artist (also the owner) said sorry, he got busy and couldn't call me but my sketch wasn't done and he had a doctors appointment to get to. Â He rough sketched on my shoulder for a minute and rescheduled me for the next day. I decided while I was there I would get a piercing. Â The piercer was nice enough, but he put in a gauge that was too big for the whole he pierced so needless to say that was quite uncomfortable. I went back the next day for my tattoo and the artist still hadn't sketched it out and an hour after the appointment time he was finally ready. He completed the outlining and shading and scheduled me for the color session. I showed up, artist was not there, again no phone call and he would not answer his phone when the receptionist called him. Once the color is finished I will never again go back to this shop.
Review Source:I decided to get my nose re-pierced and was greeted by the piercer (I can't remember his name). Â He went in the back to set up his station while I waited for a few minutes. Â Then the girl at the front desk handed me some paperwork to sign. Â I was led back to his station where he did his thing...cleaned the area that was to be pierced, then marked my nose and asked if that's where I wanted it to be. Â Finally he pierced my nose and it actually didn't hurt as much as it did the first time.
He was able to answer all my questions and gave me a pamphlet on the cleaning instructions. Â The only thing I'm disappointed about is that I didn't know there was a military discount until after the fact, and I clearly told the guy that I'm in the military and needed to take the jewelry out in uniform and asked about using a retainer, but he never mentioned about the discount. Â Bummer.
So I paid $75 total and that's including the tip. Â A bit pricey but it was well worth it. Â Parking does suck because you will need to park on the busy street of Lighthouse. Â The staff were friendly and it was clean throughout the studio.
I got my very first tattoo at Gold Coast and it was a great experience. Â When I first walked in I was greeted by the female apprentice who was very pleasant. Â I was impressed by how clean and professional the studio looks. Â I took my time looking through all the artist's photos to choose the person I wanted to work with. Â The apprentice informed me right off the bat that she was probably not yet experienced enough to do my tattoo, and that I should make an appointment to come back. Â Apparently she was the only one available that day, so that was a bit of a bummer for me since I had hoped to get it done the same day. Â I gave her my sloppy little sketch of what I wanted and when I came back for my appointment the artist had already traced it out beautifully (much better than I had done!). Â He took a bit of artistic liberty with the font I chose, I'm not sure if that was intentional or a happy accident, but what he chose looked 100x better than what I had picked out! Â I couldn't be happier with the way my tattoo came out!
Review Source:NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW WHERE DO I START? Me and my boyfriend vacationed to Monterey and decided to get a tattoo here, words cannot describe the lack of professionalism and and just flat out played us for our money!!!!!
We came in and this dude name RICK was the only one in the shop and we only wanted something about the size of a quarter tattooed, he told us the minimum was 60 which is fine since all the other shops in the area have the same min, he set us an appt for the next day and asked for a 60 dollar deposit, not saying anything about refunds or ANYTHING. we came in and decided not to get the tattoo asked for our money back and he refused!!!!! WTF!!!!! he was so rude throwing low blows about my boyfriends appearance and basically stealing our money!!!! we were to either be forced to get a tattoo we didn't want or leave with no money at all.
there is nothing written that the deposit is non refundable we didn't sign any paperwork NOTHING he basically cheated us for our money and i am so upset about this whole situation i want everyone to know that this is not right and will be reported!!!!! when we asked for the manager he said he as the shop manager which is funny because on there website he's not even mentioned or named.
I hope everyone doesn't have this same experience and be wise before they ask for money before hand cause they will just pocket it and steal for business.
not to mention he was cussing and being a rude prick the whole time even before the whole incident. unprofessional and he should be fired!!! because of this the business gets a bad name.
Went to this crap hole about a year ago now.... and yes yes i know its lame to complain now... but with today's world of reviews i just thought an HONEST opinion *and reviews not written by the artists themselves* was needed
so...How do you sum up in just one word how horrible this shop is? Oh i know... RUDE. I wanted ONE WORD tattooed on me.... and the artist i went in for was busy.. hey its cool... the person with him had an appointment... so he asked another person to do the tattoo.. i told him what i wanted.. dude presented it to me... and i said "it looks like TUCK... and i really don't want this word confused with anything but what it is.... could you maybe change the "T" so it looks more like the "F" its supposed to?" and the Dude looked at the tattoo of my friend (who had our "friendship tattoo" done there by the artist i CAME to see) and said "that doesn't look like a custom job... so just pick a font you like out of this book and let me know"... so not only did he insult the artist who did her work..... who was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO US.... he pretty much insinuated that i was calling his work crap over the mere matter of an "F" looking like a "T".... so after looking through the book and deciding that if Dude just made the proper changes id be cool...... well about 15-20 mins later Dude is no where to be found... so i decide to ditch the joint and the artist i wanted felt the need to apologize for Douche, i mean Dude.. as i was walking to my car here strolls dude... "hey you don't want your tattoo?" "Oh no id love to wait another 20 mins while you cry to your friends that some chick doesn't like the way you draw up the word FUCK"..... I went on down to KENNY CURTIS TATTOO... which is where i should have gone to begin with since all my best tattoos are from Him or his shop and Josh hooked me up with exactly what i wanted... and its even better than my friends... with girly pink accents....
I came here about a year ago and got my nose pierced, it was a random decision, paid $60, which I figured was pretty good considering Monterey is probably one of the most expensive places in the country to be... When I left and looked at it in the hotel the jewelry sat weird on my nose, I thought it was cause of the swelling. Â So I let it heal up and then when I wanted to change the jewelry I had to have a piercer do it, he tried for about an hour, we used lubricant and he still couldn't get it in, the original piercer had pierced my nose at such a wrong angle that myself or two other piercers couldn't get the jewelry in. Eventually the piercer and I gave up and he had to repierce it! It was a nightmare. The two stars I am giving the shop are for cleanliness and friendly but the fact that I had to have it repierced cause the "experienced" piercer messed up really irks me....
Review Source:Randomly decided to get my naval re-pierced. I noticed that this shop in particular gave discounts to military and I thought that was really respectful! You don't find a lot of tattoo shops that do that. So I figured, why not go here to get my naval done.
Place is really clean. I just dropped in on a saturday afternoon with my husband. It literally took all of 10 minutes to get in, get it done, and get out! Super quick. No waiting. Their piercer has a book FULL of images of different body piercings he's done....ones I'd never seen on people! This guy has experience and can do anything you're looking for.
I apologize that I can't review this place for their actual tattooing, but they had two clients getting work done in when I came in. They also have A TON of work to look through as well. So def stop by if you're looking for a tattoo as well to see if there work interest you. This place is incredibly clean! No grunge whatsoever.
Parking is pretty awful around this place and I was extremely paranoid that my friend would get a parking ticket on the hour limit street parking that surrounds this shop, but it isn't their fault - just mildly inconvenient.
I had my tattoo done by Mike Wilson. He was fantastic and although he was annoyed that my foot was spasming involuntarily, he still was extremely nice about it and even used some numbing spray that he "usually uses in the 3rd or 4th hour, but I'm just special."
I brought in a sketch and I have never gotten a tattoo before, so I thought he may add his own style into the tattoo, but he made it PERFECT! He copied the sketch my friend had drawn for me exactly how I wanted. I guess that is what they are paid to do, but I was extremely impressed and I will definitely come back here (yes, even though it is a 9 hour commute) to get my second one :-)
Someone recommended this place to my wife so we went there to get tattooed and I got to say the so called artist was very rude from the beginning, Â he refused to give us an estimate, and wanted a deposit just to get a sketch of the designs we wanted. Also if u look at the designs that they have in their books u will see that they have no talent.
Review Source:I've actually passed by here once before.
On my Watsonville play date... we happened to be in Monterey and alas, this tattoo shop was beckoning us.
If rent hadn't been due tomorrow, I would have had a tattoo. We would have had tattoos.
But I would say the thing that this tattoo studio gets right, beyond their work (as other people have mentioned) - is that they are friendly and knowledgeable. There's a certain sense of trust you must develop (this why people regret tattoos sometimes when they are drunk or if the tattoo ends up being a symbol of a scorned relationship) when you walk in one.
Anthony was cool, helpful and funny.
And because of that, we set a date. I'll let you know what comes out of our Oct. 11th, session.
i came here to check out prices and pictures because i had been wanting to get a piercing. i was greeted some guy... not sure if he was an artist or just like- an assistant. anyways he was pretty friendly. he showed me the piercing book to look at and said the piercer is always there so i decided to think about it some and come back.
while i was walking around monterey, i decided i wanted to go ahead and get it. so when i went back the same day, the same greeter guy helped me and introduced me to the piercer... Joe. well he didn't really introduce me... he just said 'hey joe- someone wants to get a piercing' joe stands up and asks of what. and the greeter told joe. joe immediately puts on this sort of disgusted... /wtf face and was like- ohh a smiley?? all snarky and rude. basically asking me are-you-sure??? he comes up to tell me all of the potential problems i could face. i didn't mind that he did... i just was a little pissed at how he went about it. he was VERY rude, condescending, and just seemed TOTALLY turned off by what i wanted and his reply was just that as a piercer it was his job to inform me... but he didn't have to be such an A$$ about it.
so since he was a d!ck, i decided to not go there.... a few days later i went down to Creative Visions... thousand times better experience. i wasn't made to feel like an idiot. and the piercer was way more friendly and professional.
i don't see how gold coast can stay in business when their only piercing guy is an a$$hole who thinks he's better than everyone else.
This place is a joke. It is however perfect for the military and older crowd who know nothing about getting good quality tattoos. If you are the type of person who walks into a tattoo parlor and picks something off the wall then this place is for you, LOL.
They've probably done more semepr fi tattoos then any other shop and they seem to like it that way because most of their artists lack creativity. The one good artist who still wokrs there  think's he is a rockstar and is rude.
I went in there in my work clothes looking prim and proper and inquired about getting my stomach done. He looked me up and down, could see my sleeves under my sweater and basically told me he didnt think i could handle such pain cause I was so skinny. That was so lame, I'm covered in tatts but since I wasnt dressed punk and was in my work clothes he turned me away.
There was some good artists there years ago but they have ran them all out of there. DON"T get your tatto done by a guy who's name starts with a "O", I have seen him buthcer too many tattoos to count.
Funny story, my husband and I discovered Gold Coast Tattoo while looking for a mom and pop ice scream shop. Didn't find what we were looking for but we did Gold Coast!
Staff was super friendly and VERY CLEAN. They took their time with piercing placement and also helped pick up the appropriate jewelry. Their prices were very affordable and their care instructions were clear and precise.
I got a handful of people I know who have all gotten great work done here. My boy Anthony works at the front counter and can help you find what your looking for.
The artists here are always cool about helping you get exactly what your looking for and hooking up deals if your looking to get a lot of work done.
Everything I've seen come out of this shop looked top notch so they are getting a strong endorsement from me.
There's no other place to get work done in Monterey County that I know of as well.
Oh and check out Gianni's Pizza down the street it's the bomb diggidy.
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