Riverside Tattoo Studio

I can't rate this studio on their actual work, because we weren't able to set up an appointment.

That part of their business I can rate. If you want the short version of the one star rating, I'll just say "They made us feel so unwelcome/unwanted on the phone that we chose somewhere else." If you want a few more details, read on.

I called Riverside Tattoo and when the gentleman answered, I explained that we lived in Georgia (an adjoining state) and would be driving two hours to come to their facility. I explained that I was calling to see if they were booked for the evening, or had an open time slot to schedule an appointment. I was told that one artist was booked, but the other artist had an opening at the end of the evening.

Sweet!  

I was told that walk-ins were welcome, along with appointments, but they would not take any appointments for tattoos within 30 minutes of closing. This allowed them to devote time to the job at hand without being rushed and to properly close the shop.

Again, not a problem. Very reasonable.

The issue arose when I tried to make an appointment for a tattoo. I was told that they only booked appointments in person. I again explained that we would be on the road for two hours (this still left us plenty of buffer to not break their "30 minutes prior to closing" rule.) The gentleman was adamant about not taking a reservation over the phone.

Again, I confirmed - because this seemed odd -  that driving the two hours and walking in for a tattoo was fine, but that they would not make a confirmed reservation. He confirmed that this was the case. When I again mentioned that it would be a waste of our time to make the two hour drive only to have someone walk in for a tattoo 10 minutes before we got there, we were told "Sorry."

I would have had no problem with a nonrefundable deposit to guarantee the appointment, but the conversation never made it that far. It was clear that he (and presumably the company he was representing), had no desire for our business.

They might be excellent tattoo artists, but we'll never know. Based on our personal experience with the person that answered the phone, we chose to spend our money somewhere else.