Serious Juggling

Disclaimer: So I live in California. Never actually visited the store or interacted with anyone in this store.
I’ve been practicing on my 5 ball cascade/​tricks for awhile now and my old beanbags were literally ripping apart. It was time to get some new beanbags. I did some research online and found this place (since my old juggling spot in LA closed down).
I ordered 6 new beanbags about a year ago. The store personally called me the next day saying that some of the colors I ordered were out of stock, and asked me what other colors are you interested. Fair enough. I told them my new preference, and I got them in a timely fashioned (within a week or so).
As of this day, the bean bags are still in good shape, and I had no problem with the service. I’m only rating the delivery service at the time.

UPDATE! Good news, gang. The people who run this store just saw me in the street and screamed at me that they were going to sue me! Neat. That means that they obviously read these reviews and are still deluded enough to think they aren’t doing anything wrong. So obviously the way to fix it is to threaten people? Cool.
The good news for me is that I can only be sued if the things I say are untrue. So smooth sailing ahead! Good luck, guys.

Awful customer service only begins to describe my disgust for the experience I just had here.
I brought a family member from out of town here, from across town in horrible traffic, parked several blocks away and was greeted by a rude woman, a cluttered disorganized mess of boxes and walked out within 3 minutes completely irritated!
First if all… If you advertise as a «retail» outlet… Don’t be put off when people walk in your store. Maybe try that whole door lock if you can’t be bothered with customers.
Second off, don’t be irritated with me attempting to browse in your tight quarters because you are incapable of breaking down and disposing of your plethora of boxes.
My family member was interested in an acrylic sphere for contact juggling and they practically laughed at him for wanting to browse. The man in the store was attempting to help and pulled some items out but was told by the woman when he went to hike over the mountain of cardboard to check a price… «don’t bother to do that unless he shows real interest».
This is the point we turned around and walked out.
I will NEVER support a company who can’t even bother with basic niceties and customer service.
Rude rude rude!
Stick to on-​line sales! Ugh

Prices are a little overpriced, the people who work there are a little odd, the selection of kendamas was good, but overall just a wild experience

Let’s see where do I start? I’m a business major student and I can tell you this is the worst run business on the planet. They have STORE HOURS but for some reason you always have to call in before going because they’re to unorganized to have their store open during the hours they have posted on their website. The owners Yvette and Ben are some of the most clueless people I’ve met. On one hand we have Ben, a passive super nice polite person who is so helpful and would most certainly do a much better job of running serious juggling on his own, Yvette is the devil, I can’t put it anyway else because that’s exactly what she is. She isn’t ever polite and she is always yelling wether that be at a customer or at Ben. Poor Ben, just by the way Yvette (his wife) treats him I’m almost positive she prolly gets physical with him. There’s been times when I’m in serious juggling and wonder to myself «Ben why do you allow this women to speak and treat you this way?» Not my problem. Anyways…
The actual serious juggling store front is a MESS they have a really big store front but because they’ve hoarded everything and anything that’s ever came into that store only a few feet is suitable for customers literally, don’t believe me go check for yourself.
I supported this place regardless of EVERYONE I KNOW WHO PLAYS KENDAMA, YOYOS, and JUGGLES TELLING ME TO STAY FAR AWAY FROM THERE. Wanna know what that got me? Ripped off for $$. Not much money only 5 $ but it’s the fact of the matter not the money. They are so unsure of their products that the prices change every single minute one minute Ben will say 30 $ but Yvette won’t approve so she yells at Ben and then the price went from 30 to 40 in a matter of seconds. All because Ben can’t stand up for himself and allows his wife to stomp all over him. Poor guy. No wonder he always looks so sad and depressed. Too bad his wife doesn’t see that.
No one on Portland supports this store, you’re better off ordering online where you don’t have to deal with serious juggling. Stay as far away as you can. They have no idea what customer service is. If they did they would hold true to their store hours and they wouldn’t yell at their customers.
The last time I went when they stole money from me I was being yelled at by Yvette for asking how they expected to sell anything if they don’t out their products up on their website? She yelled at me that if people knew how to read and checked Facebook that they wouldn’t need to update their website. Is she too slow to realize that a customer will order online elsewhere before trying to dissect the code serious juggling puts up in order to buy something from them? Never in my life have I ever seen a business that actually makes it DIFFICULT TO PURCHASE FROM THEM. what sense does it make to make everything so difficult that you don’t sell any products? They need help.
Once I even sent my own girlfriend up there who is scared of serious juggling and will never go near the place because Yvette even yelled at my girlfriend for no reason what so ever. This is truly a sad story how poorly ran this business is. If you take the time to look up reviews and actually go into this place you will see exactly what I’m talking about. The sooner serious juggling realizes they need help the sooner portland will start to support them. You cannot yell and every customer and expect them to come back, not happening. I’m not even sure why I ever went in to begin with, from the very first time I ever dealt with serious juggling the place has been a mess but for some reason I always gave them the benefit of the doubt.
Anyways Yvette if you read this, screw you.

Yikes! Has this company changed ownership? I can’t see how else they got such high ratings. I would warn everyone NOT to order anything from this company. I ordered 2 sets of 3 juggling balls in June. My credit card was also charged in June. My daughter received her juggling balls in August and to date (October 12^th) I have not received mine. They have stopped answering calls and emails. 3 juggling balls –seriously, how hard can that be for a business called Serious Juggling??? I emailed today to cancel my order and to credit my charge card. I don’t even think it’s legal to charge for something that you can’t ship in ³¹⁄₂ months, is it? My son also had placed a larger order with them and had the same problem. He found another place to order from:
, with shipping he said it comes out to $ 6 a ball. And maybe he’ll actually get them!
Stay away!

Hmmm… I first heard of this spot from an avid juggling friend of mine. The initial visit was unsuccessful only because they were closed, in spite of it being within their posted hours. The items I could see from the storefront peaked my interest, however, and by the time my second visit came around, I was excited to finally scope out the goods. Holy Hoarders! There were boxes and clutter everywhere, making it difficult to move around and have a casual look at everything available for purchase — especially considering the volume, variety, and rarity of the merchandise on the walls and lining their shelves. Nothing was gross or uncomfortable, though. The owners simply told me they were in the midst of settling in, so I resigned myself to return for a third visit some time later when they had pulled themselves together a bit more. When that day came, though, (a year or so later I might add), I was shocked to find just as many boxes in the middle of the store and the same frenetic, unkempt environment I confronted on my first visit, if not worse. I say this not to be overly critical or condescending, but only for the purpose of encouraging them to make their retail location a bit more tidy and user friendly in order to better show off the fun items they have to offer customers like me. And they really do have a lot of cool stuff.
Tommy S.‘s review seems exceedingly harsh, although there is a morsel of the truth to his observation that the shop feels like an episode of Portlandia waiting to happen. But the owners are genuinely kind people and clearly fans of para-​theatrics, as evidenced by the numerous other positive reviews. On my third visit, the three of us made great conversation and Ben helped me select a beautiful matching set of five high quality juggling balls, in addition to giving me a few pointers. These are lovely people who maybe aren’t the most put together business owners, but certainly are not lacking in enthusiasm or manners. And there’s no evidence that they don’t know a lot about their products, or that they don’t love selling juggling materials and trickster gear. I think it’s just the way they run their business, and hell, more power to them. It won’t stop me from coming back or from sending them further business. These are serious jugglers indeed, and their store is aptly named.

Let me start off by saying quite bluntly that this business is a joke. I am a kendama player and I had previously checked their website and found that they had a kendama no longer made by the distributor and is therefore highly valued. Upon arriving at the store I assumed that I would go in, and come out with the item I intended to purchase, but this was not to be. Outside of the store was a gathering of two staff members and several customers who were juggling and discussing juggling and I asked about the kendama I intended to buy when I thought I should be able to go inside and make a painless and easy purchase but they said «we dont have anyone in the store right now» and proceeded to grab my kendama without my consent and they asked me stupid, pointless questions about it. Eventually they let two people in the store myself included and I discovered they didn’t have the product I wanted.
Inside the store they also had a terrible misuse of a large amount of space which was mostly filled with only cardboard boxes and some unicycle parts. (The amount of space and quality of storefront does not correspond with the photos found on Unilocal) Then the lady on staff made several outrageous remarks about juggling stores, stated as follows, «People think we are millionaires with tons of space» (They would have space if they freaking, cleaned the place up! «There are only two juggling stores in North America. you should be glad to have us in your city» I in fact was from out of town and I will tell you know one who shops at this store should be considered lucky to have them in their city.
The staff here are awful and the people who organize the store space should be fired. I left this store without the product I expected to get and received only frustration and anger. Don’t let the five stars, somewhat professional website and promising Unilocal photos fool you, this business doesn’t deserve your money. The experience I had at this so called «business» was one so ridiculous and stupid it felt like it was straight out of a Portlandia episode.

I ordered from this company last year for Christmas gifts and did not have any problems with the items I received or the shipping time, and also before this for myself. I put through an order this year on December 4 for a Christmas gift for my cousin, got a confirmation email with my order number, but it stated that they would contact me by phone with shipping costs. I never got a phone call. I called twice and left voice messages, never got a return phone call back. I also sent them messages on their online chat, which was never on. I called again tonight, 2 WEEKS LATER and finally got a guy on the phone, who seemed like he wanted to help, but was not helpful at all. He told me that they go through the orders in the order that they get them and they JUST got to my order today. He said that the color we requested (blue) is not in stock, but they have a lot of other colors to choose from. I asked why, after 2 WEEKS, that they are just getting around to putting my order together TODAY and did not call me or email me to let me know that they were running behind or that my color was not in stock and he said that they were very busy and DID NOT HAVE THE TIME to. Then he tells me that I can get my order by this Friday for an EXTRA $ 5.10 «which is a great deal around this time of the year»…not only have I not received my order yet, they didn’t even TRY to fulfill it until today AND they want to charge me EXTRA to get the order by Christmas, when it should have shipped A WEEK AGO. All of a sudden, a woman starts talking and I asked who she was (maybe a supervisor??) and she told me «that’s not important» and asked if I wanted her to ship «whatever they had in stock» otherwise, she was just going to cancel my order. I told her I didn’t even know what they had in stock to choose from and she said «you get what you get»…I said that’s no way to speak to a customer. Here I am, CALMLY trying to find out how much longer my order is going to take, thinking that 2 weeks is MORE than enough time and she got such an attitude with me. I asked to speak with a manager and she said «well I’M the OWNER. I’m very busy and I don’t have the time for your WHINING so tell me what you want or I’m going to cancel the order» REALLY!!! I told her I needed to know what colors they have and her words back were «I’m just cancelling your order, I don’t have time for this. Goodbye» and hung up! I will NEVER do business with this company again and do WHATEVER I can to make sure that other people know what a horrible experience this was!

Serious Juggling took me for a $ 168.00 ride last winter, allowing me to prepay two unicycles on my credit card and then not allowing me to pick up my prepaid items as agreed upon. Ben tried to be helpful and friendly, but the owner (woman) yelled at him and me and would not allow the service that was promised and paid for. She is scarey. Police were called in to the store when I refused to leave without my items which I had paid, and the police officers reported to me that this was not the first occasion that they have been called to this store. I would NOT give them business nor ever recommend them. I thought it was great to have such a neat store in NE Portland, but this is not a business run with integrity. I had to cancel my credit card charge, and the owner even hung up on my credit card company representative when they called her to try to work this out in a civil manner. They gave her the opportunity to remove the charges herself from my card and she refused and cursed at them, as she had done to me in person and to the police officers.

It is great to see a locally run Juggling /​Skill Toy shop. I came to Portland on business, and had to stop by. The owners are super friendly. I will definitely be coming back here.

I’ve dealt with Ben for many years for my juggling props and he has always been friendly and helpful.

I’ve always wanted to learn to juggle and I finally decide to stop waiting and jump in. They were so helpful and very excited about someone who had no idea what to do. They were very encouraging with ideas on how to start. I went home, took their advice and was juggling by the end of the day. If you’re bored and tired of watching reruns on hulu I highly suggest picking up this fun and cheap hobby.

Coming from a long line of ‘Customer Service’ and being a small business owner I have high expectations. I was treated with respect, given excellent custom customer service, received my order in less than 24 hours and made to feel like a long time customer and family. A package was delivered and the dream of 13 year old began to be realized with the thoughtful and insightful help I received from Ben at Serious Juggling. We will be back. This was model service and excellent quality merchandise.

Very helpful and friendly. They just moved to 2635 NE Broadway Street.

I am a world-​traveling juggler. I get different equipment for live shows, practicing, teaching lessons, and for film & TV work. I’m abusing props like crazy and performing — I don’t want to keep up on the latest technology /​trends of juggling equipment. I know I don’t have to.
Every time I call Serious Juggling, Ben or Yvette answers, they’re nice and helpful. I don’t get sales nonsense or rudeness. They listen so that they get me exactly what I need.
I trust their advice, credit card security and customer service.
There are some questions that are hard to answer with a web search…
* «What balls are best for beginners?»
* «Which clubs would you recommend for 5 club practice?»
* «What kind of prop looks best on a big stage?»
Serious juggling answers my questions and gets me the right equipment to get the job done.