The Chop Shop

Jessica runs a great salon. My mom, sister and I regularly come from the Bay Area to have her do our nails. She is meticulous, friendly, and so accommodating of special needs. We love The Chop Shop!

Nice space and friendly environment however really bad manicure. No water soak before cuticles were cut (ouch) and the «shellac» brand of gel did not work on my nails. I walked out after paying $ 50 and my nails had wavy lines in them and the polish was super thick. I drove down to Napa later that day and had it redone ($ 45). Really disappointed and not recommended.

I came in looking to try something new to my hair. I showed my stylist a picture of how I wanted my hair to look let me tell you I was NOT disappointed. It was a 2 step process, I started off with jet black hair and when I was done I had a beautiful ombré. I love it, everybody who see it loves it. Thank you, thank you so much!

I walked into this establishment today with my dear friend who just moved to Calistoga and is looking for a new salon (not to mention she is a wedding/​event planner) and is always looking for a stylish place to sent high end clients. We walked in so jovial and excited only to be met by a very rude person. As we walked inside, she looked at us and turned and started walking away without saying a word. My friend asked her if she worked there and she said «I do» and continued down the hallway. We had to stop her again to ask about her services and her response was to point at a board on the wall.
Some advice to the girl with the short haircut that clearly did not want to be at work today, a greeting is worth everything, and only takes a moment, and thanks to your lack of kindness I can assure you we will be taking our business elsewhere!!!

I came in for a mani/​pedi appt. The owner worked on me, so I figured she would know what she was doing. One of the worst mani/​pedis I’ve ever gotten. She didn’t even do my cuticles. She applied the nail polish unevenly, completely missed spots on my nails and mocked me a bit when I asked her to touch it up. The nails she fixed were worse off than they were before, because she rushed through the process and left cotton ball residue all over my nails. I could not believe I paid 65 $ + tip for such a terrible job. It’s only been two days and my polish has chipped on every nail. Can’t even tell I got them done. The owner was very kind up until I asked her to fix my nails, but at the end of the day I wasn’t paying for her to be nice… I came in for a nice manicure/​pedicure! Such a bummer and a waste of money.

Perfect spot for girls day out! Came in with 5 friends for mani, pedis, & massage with 1 hour notice on a Saturday. Great nails, beautiful salon, and excellent service. Thanks Chop Shop!

Worst Experience EVER.
To the owner, all this transpired on Thursday morning 6/​25, I also placed a call to your establishment at around 330 pm the same day to speak to you. Read below for what your employees did.
This place gets 1 star for professionalism and 5 stars for racism. I truly hope the owner will read this in an effort to save her business and realize that she has the wrong people working for her.
We were staying at the Solage Resort and in in town for a wedding. We asked the Spa at the resort for a mani/​pedi recommendation for my girlfriend. They suggested this place. The nail tech did a very poor job and my girlfriend was trying to work with her. her cuticles where not cut, she barely filed down the nails, and the polish was not evenly applied, and was even on her skin. After the poorly completed mani/​pedi, I placed a call to speak to the owner. A woman answered and said she was not available. She said can I help you. I said that my girlfriend was in there today for mani/​pedi and that the job was not done professionally. She proceeded to tell me that my girlfriend «nit picked» her nail tech for an hour. I said she did it because it was not being done correctly. The woman then said, what do you want. I said, you charged her $ 85 for a very poor job and I would either like a refund, or split the difference with you. Instead of trying to discuss it with me. She immediately said”…absolutely not.” Then here is the racism… She said «want don’t you go back to the ASIANS that you are used to» I said excuse me…“she said where are you from” I said Chicago, and she said, «welcome to Calistoga Buddy» and hung up the phone on me.
I tried to call back, and they would not answer. As a warning to everyone, stay away from this place. I could care less about the money, $ 85 will not break us, far from it. However the racism, and lack of customer centric service is just appalling. I spoke to the Solage Spa and Solage Management and recommend they do not send their guests here and they were VERY interested and what we had to say. I am also contacting the Calistoga Chamber of Commerce.

I want to thank Michl for doing a phenomenal job on my hair! I usually don’t do anything too adventurous to my style but when I asked her to help me out with a crazy idea I had, she was up for the challenge. Michl was very concerned with maintaining my hair as healthy as possible with so many bleaching and dying processes, such that she took the time to do a two– step process.
Michl, you rock!

Trina is the best! love love love her! She really understands hair and her customer. Not only will you look beautiful with Trina as your stylistic but you can feel she really cares and for that one hour or so with her you are the most important person in the world.

This is the only place in Calistoga I go. They totally deserve 5 starts. All of the girls are really sweet and helpful. I’ve gotten manis and pedis and my hair done and all of them have turned out great. It is really clean and has a great atmosphere. Even when ive walked in they have gotten me in. I don’t know if people giving them bad reviews were divas or what but if your nice to them like I have been they are as helpful and kick as can be back.

My bestie and I do an annual trip to Calistoga and try a new mani/​pedi spot each visit. The Chop Shop was a very nice experience. It’s clean, light, and airy, and the owner and her employees are very down-​to-​earth and friendly. We will return!

What can I expect from a place called the «Chop Shop»? I guess I should have known. But I was desperate for manicure; so there I found myself. $ 25 is ridiculous for a manicure in the first place, but my nails still look like I didn’t get anything done at all. And NO massage at all! I tipped anyway but regret the experience. Live and learn.

Had my wedding hair and my bridesmaids’ hair done here and they did a fantastic job! They were able to squeeze me in when I had to cancel the person I had originally scheduled (another story) and were super kind and accommodating. I am pretty picky about my hair and I loved what they were able to do with it. Everything took longer than they had quoted, but they did such a great job, I didn’t care.
Some of us also had our nails done and they did a decent job on them as well.

Kinda grumpy and expensive.
The woman who did my toes was really great. My friends on the other hand had a woman who was a bit grumpy and I later learned was the owner. She commented a few times about how she «makes a living washing peoples feet», and in general seemed pretty unhappy about being there.
Also it’s very expensive for what it is.
(Two stars are because she was understanding when one of our friends couldn’t make it, I liked the lady who worked on me, and the décor was cute.)

I wish I could say something nice but just had my hair chopped and worst color job I’ve experienced anywhere yet! Came home in tears. I’m a college student and don’t have a lot of money I was told I’d be charged $ 65 and I told the girl Dani that I hated the color and their was a whole patch of gray not covered. She just said huh! Then I’m charged $ 85! I came home and had to recolor it myself! Thank God I can’t see the back of my head because it’s an embarrassment! I give up California you suck for hair stylists!
Cash only should be told on the phone!
Also a couple months ago I did a shellac Mani and a pedicure. Shellac started coming off next day and barely and toes were very thinly applied. Ugh so tired of people shamelessly taking my hard earned money and giving shoddieness in return!

My party of 5 went here to get our hair done (up-​dos) for my wedding that day. They only had two chairs working, so we had to take turns, but nobody in my party wanted anything elaborate, so I wasn’t too worried.
They took me (the bride) first, which I appreciated. The stylists were very personable to our entire party and helped lighten the mood of my big day. We were 95% happy with our hair, although some of our bobby pins started to come loose.
My only critique is that when the appointment was made, we weren’t made aware that it was cash only, and luckily we had enough with us to cover the bill. Other than that it was a great experience.

Wedding weekend pedicure disaster.
I paid $ 45 for a pedicure and half of the nail polish on my big toe peeled off before the end of the day. The polish was so badly applied that it didn’t dry after a full day of wearing flip flops. As soon as I put closed toe shoes, it fell off. Never happened to me before.
Did I mention I was in Calistoga for my sister’s wedding and had many other things on my plate…

This place is the worst, which is sad because I was hoping to make this my new go to place as I’m new to the area. I made an appointment to get a shellac manicure on my lunch break. I showed up and it took the girl literally 35 minutes to remove my old shellac. 35 MINUTES! And she said that it usually takes longer, wtf? I’ve never had this take longer than five minutes, it was like she was moving in slow motion the entire time. I had to leave to go back to work with wrecked gross looking nails because it would have taken her another 20 minutes to paint them. Not to mention I had an event right after work and had to go with my nails a mess. This place is a joke.

Made an appointment for a haircut today at 11am and was early only to be told that my stylist was behind schedule, after waiting 15 minutes I was then told that there was a scheduling conflict and asked to come back in an hour. Something I could not do since my schedule did not permit.
This is the second time this has happened, and will be the last.
The attitude and body language of the manager was appauling and offensive, I will not, as a local resident, ever spend money at this salon again. Not sure they understand the concept of customer service.

Cute shop off the main road (Lincoln) in sleepy Calistoga. Jessica opened up shop in October 2012 and with a group of other licensed ladies, they aim to beautify locals and tourists alike.
I came here for walk-​in mani pedis for $ 55. They carry a decent selection of OPI colors but could easily expand. While not the best manipedi experience I’ve ever had, it was quite pleasant and I enjoyed chatting with Jessica the owner.
Nails were ok for about a week and a half then started chipping. Not bad. The place is very clean and they offer a variety of services and are quite knowledgeable about beauty and cosmetics.
I would definitely come back to get another mani-​pedi or maybe a blow out. Make sure to check out the huge plant in the window — it’s real!