Carol’s Cleaners & Alterations, Inc

I guess I should have read the reviews on here before using them for alterations. I took an expensive dress to be hemmed. The tailor came out and pinned the dress all around and I left it with them. When I came to pick up the dress they couldn’t find it and we all literally had to search every piece of clothing in the shop until we came across it. They had someone elses ticket on my dress.
Then I took the dress home and tried it on. They hadn’t cut evenly around the dress so one section of the dress was a couple inches shorter than the rest of the dress, basically ruining it. I called and spoke with Michael who told me to bring the dress in. He wasn’t there when I came in but spoke with «the old Asian lady» as everyone on here refers to her as. She had me put the dress on and said they could fix it. There’s no way the dress could be fixed unless it was shortened even more. I told her that I didn’t want it shortened further and she kept insisting I should leave the dress with them and trust them as they were the experts. I asked her to explain to me how they were going to fix it when there was no hem left to use, and without making it shorter. At that point, she started screaming at me and told me that she didn’t have time for me and I should just get out of the shop. So basically my expensive dress is ruined and I had to deal with bad and abusive behavior.
There are plenty of other good tailors in town. Take your business somewhere else.

I’ve been going here for years but will NEVER again after my latest experience. I took in a brand new dress from Neiman’s with the tags still attached to be shortened. When I picked it up, there were white chalk marks ALL over it. How is it appropriate to return a dark royal blue dress to a customer covered in white chalk marks?! And the worst part, I found a spot/​stain the size of my index finger right on the front center along where they hemmed. I asked them where the spot came from and they stood there and denied denied denied that they did it. I told them that it was a brand new dress straight out of the box with the tags still on and that the spot was certainly not there when I tried it on for them to pin. But they continued to deny their wrongdoing. Furthermore, I could have sewn a straighter hem if I were blindfolded. It was the worst job I’ve ever seen them do on a basic hem. Terrible customer service, terrible craftmanship, terrible business! They do not care about you as a customer and they do not care about your property. They may not ruin your clothes the first time, but they WILL at some point.

I have mixed feelings about this place. Let’s start with, a friend referred me to this place (and she too, is now disenchanted with the manner in which HER garment was handled). At times, the tailoring is beautifully done in a timely manner, and the staff is cheery, pleasant. Other times, they overcharge, act inconvenienced if you don’t pay cash, and falter on interpersonal skills.
Just recently I arrived with 2 clothing items that needed to be mended. I was told by the clothing intake guy the sewing girls were on vacation and it would be at least one week, maybe more, maybe less, hard to tell, that my garments would be ready. Okay fine. I told him I’d be expecting a phone call when my items were ready. I wrote my number on the claim ticket and reminded them to call me. After about 10 days, I called the store during normal business hours and no answer. I called the next day and no answer. Nearly 3 weeks since drop off, I drive to the store and my clothes are ready to go. Just hanging there in a sea of garments. I said, «uh, how long have these items been ready? I asked for a phone call.» Silence. Little eye contact, some squawking from the sewing room, and ZERO apology. Just a single question: «You pay cash today?»

I have been coming here for years, and there’s never been an issues. I dropped off a suit jacket at 12:30 pm and they said it would be ready by 4 pm, it’s 5 pm and they haven’t even started my jacket. $ 22 to cut 2 inches off each arm and it’s not ready. The most horrible and unprofessional service by far today.
After an hr and a half, the old Asian lady yelled at me & told me I was lucky they even serviced me, excuse me? You are the lucky one that I was giving you business. In the entire time I sat there and waited I saw 2 different people come in and they had no idea what had happened to their clothes, it was possibly taken home to work on… What does that even mean… It has been dropped over a mth ago, so clearly they don’t fix your clothes when they’re supposed to & it seems like they steal it too.

I don’t know how this place got the award for Best Tailor in Houston Press. I brought in a pair of new pants that were a little bigger and a picture and asked them if they could make the changes to make the new pants look like the picture. They said yes and proceeded to pin the areas to alter. The person pinning me said they would need to take off some from the belt and I voiced concern that it might make the pants shorter and asked twice. They said it would not be a problem.
When I went to pick it up it was, as I worried, too short. Someone else was there and when I explained to him why I was unhappy he said there’s no way to keep the length with what I wanted. I told him the person pinning me said the opposite. We went back and forth until he told me never to come back. Yes, like I would come back for them to mess up another alteration and charge me for it.
Go to Martin Tailors about 2 miles north on Shepherd. They are exponentially better, faster and more personable.

I have been going there for over 10 years. At times my alterations were not completed on time. The last straw was the other day when I was leaving slacks to be hemmed, the male clerk asked me to pay UP FRONT. I asked him why and he said they could not be sure if their customer was going to return to pick up the item. I said listen, you have NEVER asked me to pay up front and I have been a customer for 10 years. He did not back down. I took my items and will never return. I live in the area and will tell all my neighbors and friend what happened to me.

It was difficult coming up with a rating for this place. It’s really a 2 ½, but I’m feeling generous, so I’ll round up. I came here to get my bridesmaid dress altered. I chose it, despite mixed reviews because it was convenient… or so I thought. I had more than the standard hem/​take it in a little alterations done. Those would have cost me about $ 60 (my dress had three layers that needed to be hemmed). I also got the dress changed from halter to strapless, so in total it came out to $ 120+tax. Actually, the alterations cost about the same as my dress. I’ve never gotten anything altered before, so I had/​have no idea what the job should have cost, but I wasn’t shocked by the price. In the end, the dress ended up looking just the way I wanted and fits great, so I was happy with the work. The experience, however, left much to be desired and I can tell you that when I’m a bridesmaid again next year, I probably won’t bring my dress back here.
When I came to drop off the dress, around 2 pm on a Friday, I tried it on and explained what I wanted done. They seemed very confused by my wanting to change the style from halter to strapless and tried to convince me to leave it the way it was. Then, when they were able to understand what I wanted, they told me I’d have to come back in an hour or two so that the person who does more complicated alterations would be in. Fine. I came back, she got it, pinned me up, and I was on my way. She told me the price and I had to prepay. I was promised my dress would be ready 12 days later. I thought this was a long time, but I told them I wasn’t in a big rush, so it would be fine.
12 days later, a Wednesday, I went in to pick up my dress. They couldn’t find it and then realized it hadn’t been finished. One of the ladies tried to convince me that it was Tuesday. Only when I showed her the date on my phone did she say, it’s not ready because she didn’t have something needed to complete the alteration. Now, I’m a pretty easy going, flexible person, but the disorganization and lack of a phone call for a heads up, or apology did not instill a lot of confidence in me. I worried that the dress was going to be all messed up. The following day when I returned, the dress was ready. Still no apology, but the dress was right.
For me, there was too much hassle involved for me to want to come here, though for the basics they’re probably alright and in the end, I was happy with the work.

The best place for all your alteration needs. One hour at no extra charge. Love this place. Luv it. Totally recommend this place for all. The most talented tailors ever. I luv this place! Sandy N.

I have been going to Carols for the last 20 years for my cleaning and alterations. There friendly and quality service always bring me back. This place is a hidden gem and your should discover it to yourselves
Great service, quality, price and most of all great people to deal with

Don’t go here!
I wish I would have researched the company better before I took three beautiful Lilly Pulitzer dresses here to be altered. They did horrible work for $ 92, and I could not be less happy. I am a positive reviewer and usually only post on here for outstanding service, but this was so horrible that I want to warn others. I left three dresses there last Thursday and picked them up today. I am very displeased with the poor alterations that are not what I asked for. Moreover, I feel like they way they charged me was almost stealing, as they were not upfront about prices. Finally, the person who actually did the alterations barely spoke English. This should have been the warning for me– duh! I had to tell one person what I wanted and he translated it to the other lady. The results were disastrous.
Dress #1: $ 20
They charged me $ 20 to lower the hem one inch on a cotton dress. Had they been clear and upfront about the price I would have never left it there. My drycleaner would have done that for $ 5. I would have never brought this dress there were I not already bringing the other dresses there, and as they were not upfront about the cost, I had no idea they planned to charge $ 20 for 5 minutes of basic work.
Dress #2: $ 36
I wanted the hem dropped one inch and asked for two small slits to be placed on the bottom, one on each side like notches on the legs. I am 5’10″ and often dresses are not cut right to fall on my long frame, so the slits change the fit. Well, my dress was returned to me without slits. Instead, they took it upon themselves to size it in a bizarre way. The dress is a size 6, and now it’s big in the waist like they altered it to fit a 5’5″ size 6 who is newly pregnant. It’s like they let out the waist when the waist was too big on me to begin with, and just forgot about the slits.
Dress#3: $ 36
Same thing as dress #2. I can’t believe it. The dress looks awful.
In a nutshell, I took three dresses there that were wearable but not perfect. Now two of them aren’t even wearable. Never go here!!!
Update: I took dress #2 and dress #3 back to give them a chance to fix their work. One of the two dresses now fits, but the other could not be recovered from the way they let out the waist. I am very disappointed and would not recommend going here.

First off, I wish I would have read the reviews on Unilocal before stopping by this place! I could have saved myself a lot of trouble…
I found the perfect dress to wear to an event, but it needed a minor alteration. I stopped by Carol’s since it was close to my house. The woman working in the front of the store assured me that my dress would be ready by 1:45 that afternoon. I wrote down my name and cell phone number and then left to run a few errands. What she failed to mention was that they close at 2pm on Saturday’s (what business, besides banks, closes at 2pm on a Saturday???). Imagine my shock when I pulled up to the store just after 2pm to discover that the store was closed! I tried calling the main number for the store, but it just rang and rang and there was no answering machine. Why no one called my cell phone to warn me that they were closing is beyond me. I could have been there in 5 minutes!
Suffice it to say I was extremely upset and disappointed not to be able to wear the dress for my event that evening (I could actually see it hanging up through the store window which was even more frustrating!!!).
A few days later when I returned to pick it up, I explained what happened to the man behind the front counter. He called over the woman who had helped me when I dropped off the dress, and they spoke to one another in what I presume was Chinese or Mandarin. He relayed that the lady was saying that she had pointed at the store hours written on the ticket (the fact that the woman would not speak directly to me was odd considering she had spoken perfect English to me just a few days prior). I told him that she never pointed to the ticket, much less to the store hours printed at the bottom of the ticket, and besides that, she never even gave me a copy of my ticket. The man just shook his head and then told me to pay up the full $ 18 that I owed. I told him I was not going to pay him because it is bad business not to inform first time clients that they close at 2pm on Saturday’s, especially when the client tells you they need the item for that evening. At that point, he began yelling at me that they have been in business for 18 years and that it’s my own fault for not checking the store hours. He also threatened to call the police if I didn’t pay. I held my ground and he told me he would reduce the price to $ 10, but I still refused to pay on principle. Eventually he told me just to take the dress, but that was after several minutes of yelling and threatening to call the cops.
I will never go back here again, and I sincerely warn anyone else considering using this place for dry cleaning or alterations. The people running this place are rude, unprofessional and not customer-​friendly at all.

Carol’s. Cleaners. Rocks.
5 stars, seriously, what more do I need to say? Just go there.

I had a dress made overseas and needed to send my measurements. I went to Carol’s on my friend’s recommendation. The lady who took my measurements rushed through it and was very haphazard. Unfortunately I had no time to find someone else to take my measurements. When I got my dress, the dress didn’t fit properly due to the inaccurate measurements I sent in. Now I have to take my custom-​made dress in to be altered. If Carol’s can’t do something basic and crucial as measurements correctly, why would I trust them with anything else?

I’ve had jeans hemmed here and two work dresses altered. Both turned out great. Once I dropped off a pair of (my favorite) designer jeans the Friday before I departed on a 10 day international trip. I goofed up and didn’t realize they had limited hours on Saturday, so I wasn’t able to pick them up before my flight. I’ve had some issues in the past with dry cleaners «losing» articles of clothing, but this wasn’t the case at Carol’s. When I returned 10 days later, my jeans were still there and hemmed perfectly.

I took the advice of some Unilocal-​friends and decided to take a couple of dresses here for alteration. I was pretty pleased with how they handled the measuring and with the end result. They scored A+ on them and I will continue to bring my business here.
But the basics? I can’t recommend them. Hemmed trousers come apart after a two to four washings…“we don’t guarantee it, hems don’t last forever…$ 3 repair”. So I have to get my machine-​washable items hemmed for $ 3 every 2 weeks? Similar work from other places is still holding strong after months and months. They were really nice and replaced a button on a jacket for free… but they put it on backwards.
Dry cleaning is fine, but can take 4 business days. They have limited weekend hours (Saturday shopping rush time).

The staff at Carol’s know their stuff! They have been able to tackle some tricky issues and redo some bad fixes. At first I wondered how they could know what to do by using only one pin (!), but I’ve never been disappointed. Super-​reasonable and timely. Luckily I live near by, but they are worth the trip from anywhere.

Carol’s, I wanted to like you. I really did. I actually had a really great first experience with you, so I went back! That’s when things went downhill.
I had a bridesmaid’s dress that I needed altered. Since my schedule was crazy, I didn’t have time to get it done until the week of the wedding. I was scared that it wasn’t going to get done, or if it did, it wouldn’t be done well. Checked the ratings on Unilocal,and decided based on the few reviews here to try out Carol’s.
When I called, they said they could do the dress in 2 days. Score! I walked in with it late one afternoon, tried it on for them, was in and out in about 15 minutes. As others have said, there are only 2 changing rooms, so if someone is getting a lot of things altered, it’s going to take a while to get into a room. However, they weren’t too busy that day, so I was done and on my way pretty quickly. Came back two days later, and the dress fit nearly perfectly! Well enough that I didn’t want to bother with any more alterations. I even asked if they could press it for me, and the sweet lady took it into the back and had it done in 5 minutes. Don’t remember exactly how much the alterations were, but I think it was under $ 30. I was a happy girl!
One month later, when I needed to wear a formal dress of mine whose zipper had finally met its end, I immediately thought of Carol’s. I also had a pair of pants with a broken zipper and some dry cleaning to do. One week later I picked up my things. The dry cleaning seemed a bit pricey, and the zippers were $ 12 each.
When my event rolled around, I decided to try on the dress early in the day, just in case. Good thing I did, because as soon as I got the dress on, I sat down on the bed and the zipper split in the middle! Now, I have been wearing this dress several times a year for the past 2 years. It is tight, yes, but I had actually lost a bit of weight since the last time I wore it, and I had never had a problem getting it zipped up, other than the dysfunctional zipper right where the fabric changes on the dress. So for this zipper to split, it meant that they had used a really cheap zipper. They are only open 10am-​2pm on Saturdays, which happened to be the exact times that I couldn’t go, so I asked my bf to take the dress back, explain what had happened, and ask them to put in a stronger zipper that day. They were willing to do the quick work (as they should!) but basically told him that you just have to be careful with the zippers, to zip them up slowly. They charged him for the new zipper (due to their policy about no free fixes after more than a week), and when I got home to try it on (being VERY careful with the zipper), it skipped a few teeth where the fabric changed in the dress! Not even wanting to take a chance on it popping again, I had to come up with a Plan B for the evening. I was very upset that they did not use a better quality zipper, especially when that is what he had asked them to do. I’m sorry, but with a dress that is supposed to be form-​fitting, you need a strong enough zipper that it won’t pop when you take a deep breath.
To make things worse with Carol’s, I noticed two months later when I pulled something out of the drycleaning bag that they had given me someone else’s pants with my drycleaning. Yikes. I took them back, and I hope they make it back to their owner. The ladies in the store were very happy that I brought them back, saying that sometimes they have to pay to replace people’s clothes. I know they don’t do the drycleaning in-​house, but still. That’s scary.
So Carol’s, I tried, but now I’m going to have to try to take my dress to someone who is willing to give me more than the lowest quality zipper they can find, and I’ll stick with my usual drycleaners who is cheaper and doesn’t lose things.

i had a great experience here. i came here by word of mouth and even though i live nowhere near here, i come to get my alterations done here.
they are fast and resonably priced. about 8 bucks for a hem.
there’s a huge lot, so no issues parking.
there are only two dressing rooms though, so when there’s someone with lots of things to alter, you might be waiting a bit. BUT you can get them done in like an hour…
crazy. i can’t see what’s behind curtain number one but i bet there’s like a million workers taking care of all the alterations.
the sell odds and ends too: purses (knock offs) and jewelery. cash only for these things.
for alterations, anything under $ 20 requires cash and all others they take credit card.

This shop made a pretty dress even prettier. I got compliments. I won’t repeat them.
I bought a vintage Hawaiian dress roughly five years ago on my birthday. It mostly fit, was a beautiful pattern of turquoise, blue, and green, had a really pretty ruffled neckline, and only cost $ 12. Serendipity. Mostly.
I wound up altering a part of it myself because I HAD to wear it that night, my birthday night. I also wound up wearing a sweater to disguise the ruffles that inevitably poked me in the back of the neck at an odd angle. I’m not a tailor. I don’t trust myself enough to disassemble the lining before altering.
Flash forward to Halloween 2010. I bought the perfect wig which reminded me of the perfect dress. Well, almost perfect.
My old tailor is too far away. He also doesn’t offer any helpful advice such as I received at Carol’s. Oh, he is great, but he didn’t offer his two cents. Tailors know people’s bodies, and how clothes should fit. They should use this wealth of knowledge, offer their opinion to their clients, and deliver wonderful results. Carol’s tailors offer this knowledge, expertise, and customer service.
For $ 26, Carol’s was able to transform my dress from mostly pretty to lulu caliber. They took in the waist, reworked the upper back, and fixed my ruffle poking neck situation.
$ 38 for a lulu of a dress is quite the bargain. Happy Birthday Past Gretchen… again!
(Thanks Julia S. for recommending this place!)

Two thumbs up for a job well done … every time. From alterations on a bridesmaid dress — to matching material for a wrap the day before prom, this is a very professional, caring and understanding business.