Gander Mountain – New Hartford Store

Gander Mtn is the go to Outdoor store in the Utica/​Rome area. They have a nice selection of camping and paddling gear. My favorite thing is their great outdoor clothing. The house brand is quality and reasonably priced. They also offer good sales/​clearance deals on name brands such as North Face, Columbia, and Mtn Hardwear. I got my Cat’s Meow North Face sleeping bag here for a steal!

Avoid this place like the plague. We ordered a safe from there in July 2014 and were told it would arrive in 6 – 8 weeks. That came and went with no safe showing up and no communication from the store. We contacted the store and customer service hotline multiple time over a period of 3 months and no one could find out where the safe was or when it would be in. We talked to at least three different managers. Finally on October 22, 2014, we called the store again and were told that the safe came in the week before. No one in that store had an ounce of common sense to pick up a phone and call us to tell us it was there. They don’t really know anything about the products they sell, which should be priority number one. They only care about making a sale. Also most things they sell there are very overpriced and can be found online for much cheaper, although this is a common fault for all big box outdoor stores. We will never buy anything from any Gander Mountain ever again.
Edit: After posting this review, I was contacted by someone from Gander Mountain on this website. They told me they were sorry about the experience I had and they said they would send me a gift card to make things right. Never got a gift card from them. They can go screw themselves.

Gander Mountain is pretty cool. I think they did a good job using lots of wooden display fixtures… they look nice and outdoor-​sy. I’m very unfamiliar with equipment and gear that is necessary with different outdoor activities so it was fun to see what they had to offer. I was especially blown away by some of the gun safes they had for sale. I never thought how legitimate and expensive these things could come! I could easily sleep in most of the ones they had… and if I ever got locked inside one of them, nobody would probably hear me.
I enjoyed this location of Gander Mountain because unlike many retail stores, they do a good job making sure there’s a clear price tag below each item.