Apparel City Sewing Machine

To be honest– this place confused me a little (old school ma & pa operation w/​brief counter service: I didn’t get much info from them at drop off) but– they did quote me accurately, and did a great job fixing my machine! Didn’t take too long either.

My Bay Thread pattern making team appreciates the customer service and the items Apparel City offers! From zippers to pattern making paper to sewing machines their product line is great!

It’s Sunday night about 7pm and I’m slammed trying to finish a sewing project. All of a sudden, my Singer sewing machine presser foot won’t lift and the shank just won’t move up or down… Ugh! Read the Unilocal reviews and Yay! Also they are close to my work in the SFDC. I get there at 8:30 am Monday when they open and a young man helped me… said it could take 5 – 7 days to fix and would be about $ 75 per hour. I’m disappointed with the timeline, but let him know I’ve got an urgent project to finish and to call me when it’s ready. Literally THE NEXT DAY I get a call saying my machine is fixed and ready for pick-​up! WOW!
So I leave work early and rush to get there before closing, and the older gentleman helped me. Said they fixed the problem, also oiled and tuned up the machine, which I didn’t even ask them to do! AND, he only charged me $ 70…When I got home and opened the machine, they even had a scrap of fabric in the machine showing that it is working beautifully!
Very happy with my experience at Apparel City, and would HIGHLY recommend to all you Sewing Genius’s out there… Happy Stitching!!!

Apparel City has a decent selection of sewing machines and light industrial equipment — but push low quality «Artisan» sewing machines because it’s an in house brand. All the parts are made in China, then they assemble them there. Beware of the head sales man «Jerry» who will try and convince you that Artisan is an amazing brand. Internal Factory bolts loose after a few months says otherwise. Jerry is the type of salesman who will belittle your experience, talk to as if you’re completely clueless, and attempt to convince you that you need machines you would never need.
Buyer Beware

I have been going here for years. No lie, when other members state the owner of this place is rude, no joke, he is rude. I put up with the guy because he has a few wonderful amazing women who work there who are so helpful, polite and love talking about any project you are working on.
Bit the bullet and bought an industrial sewing machine last year and had it serviced last year, no problem really for $ 65.00. Last week make an appointment for a yearly tune up, no problem. They call me and set the appointment for Weds at 2:-230. Christine, or Christy, not sure who is very sweet, said that he should be there by 2 – 230, but no later. I said no problem, that’s cool. So I rearrange my entire schedule for work, to work from home, moving multiple appointments around, meetings, and conferences to accommodate the 2 – 230 arrival time. So she calls me back again, the day before my appointment and asks if it is ok to actually move it from 3 – 330 instead because their tech has to travel some distance and could get caught in traffic. Not thrilled, but say ok no problem Ill just change my schedule again, that will work… So rearrange all the appointments, meetings, conferences again to accommodate the 3−330time frame. Irritating, but manageable. So then the owner calls on the day of my appointment, states his name is Nelson, and wanted to ask if it will be ok to have the tech come to my place more around 5. At this point, I am pretty pissed and cut the niceties with him and asked if it really will be at 5 today, cause if it wasn’t, I was going to be super pissed. Nelson stated and promised that he will absolutely be there at 5, no questions, no problems and will be there at 5. Reiterate to Nelson again that if the dude isn’t at my place at 5, I’m going to be unbelievably pissed. Nelson again swore and promised that the guy will be by 5. So ONCE AGAIN had to rearrange all my appointments, meetings, conferences appointments to accommodated a third time for their lack of scheduling prowess.
So day goes on, doing my thing, in the middle of a video meeting with some of my higher-​ups at my company, and what happens around 245? My buzzer to let someone in to the apartment building. Not sure who is there, as the only person I am expecting is at 5, so I don’t answer. Then I get a call on my phone, to a number I am not familiar with. I answer while my higher ups are discussing something, and guess who it is? THE TECH asking to be buzzed up so he can come service my machine. I LOSE MY SH*T and tell him I need 10 minutes to try and get out of this conference call. Give a lame excuse to my boss, who was less than thrilled of this situation.
So finally have the guy come up, and I am fuming. So I call over to good olé Apparel City and asks to speak to Nelson, to understand why the hell this dude is two hours early. Nelson gets on the phone and I pretty much rip into him immediately. Ask him to explain to me why the hell this guy is here two hours early after I rearranged everything to accommodate the later time. Flustered that I was even calling, Nelson then says, «Well if you don’t want him there, just tell him to leave.» I said no, he didn’t do anything wrong, he was doing what he was told, I am asking you how you are going to fix the mistake you made? He had nothing at that question. Just started to say well if you are unhappy with his service you can just ask him to leave. Apparently the simplicity of my statements confused Nelson, as I had to reiterate to him that I was not upset with the tech, I was upset with this completely huge inconvenience that he has cause me. I asked am I going to get a discount? «No». Am I going to get anything for this ridiculous situation? «No, but I promise we will make it better next time.» So I ask him, what does that mean make it better next time? His response was «i already told you, we will make it better» My response was, you have already told me you are going to make it better, what does that exactly mean? What does it mean you are going to make it better? His response «He will be on time next time» Yup, that was his response, his interpretation of making it better is being on time. So I lose my sh*t again and say THAT’S NOT MAKING IT BETTER, THAT IS JUST A STANDARD, BEING ON TIME FOR AN APPOINTMENT IS YOUR JOB! Surprisingly, Nelson didnt have anything to come back with this other than his favorite go to” Well if you are unhappy with his service, ask him to leave.“
At this point, it was like talking to a dead deer on the side of the road and expecting it to start reciting lines from The Hobbit. Just finally relented and said you know what, you are just absolutely not understanding anything I am saying, You have a great day Nelson” And guess what his response was? «Oh ok, thank you.»
****Click****
Winner of best customer service and making an impact with customers goes to Nelson!

Messed up my Juki walking foot this morning, gave Apparel City a call and they were at my place within 30 min on a Saturday morning! Billy fixed the issue right away and even explained how to fix the issue next time. He also took the time to make additional adjustments on the machine. Big fans of these guys!

I brought my small home machine by because it would no longer wind the bobbin. The man who helped me said that I could probably easily fix it myself, and described how to take the top off and check the gasket at home. If the gasket was damaged I could bring it in so he’d know what size to give me as a replacement. His description was great and I saw the gasket was fine, the metal spool just needed a little lubricant. They did right by me and I would definitely go back here.

I bought a brand new machine. It was broken. I went to return it and they didn’t allow for a return so I had to exchange it and instead of giving me a brand new machine they gave me the model in the window… Very frustrated with their business.

Had them come to my house to service my industrial Juki. I meant to call them in the morning before they came over to tell them I was out of machine oil, and as I had just moved the machine in, it was totally dry, so could they bring me a bottle when they came… but the guy showed up at 9:00 am so I didn’t have the chance. He was very gracious, and as I live very close to the store, he went back and picked up the oil, no problem. House call, machine looked over, and one bottle of sewing machine oil ran me about 80.00. Not too shabby. I like them for industrial services, still not totally sold on their home machine services.

Stay away… their customer service is horrible and they’re incompetent and lazy.
Here goes the story. I brought in a sewing machine for repair and the owner told me it will be ready in 1 week. I call a week later and the first thing he says is «did we call you saying that it was ready» and I say «no, but you said it’ll be ready in a week so I’m just checking in». He tells me that it’ll take another week so I wait. I call a week later and he asks the same question and I have the same conversation again. He now tells me that it’ll take 2 weeks because the parts have not come in… WHY the hell did he not tell me this a week before.
I final get my sewing machine 5 weeks after I drop it off and the owner does not even apologize for the delay. All he said was «the parts took longer than expected». It was as if he didn’t even realize how inconvenient it was for me to wait so much longer for the machine to be fixed. Also, any semi-​business minded owners know to set expectations so if you know you don’t have the parts or that parts generally take a few weeks to get then let the customer know… this is small business ownership 101.

I just bought an industrial Juki DDL-​8700 machine from Apparel City. They were helpful and polite, and the price was much lower than competitors. After bringing it home I had difficulties adjusting to the speed. Apparel City responded to emails immediately and offered to switch the pulley of the machine to slow it down. They switched to pulley in 10 minutes and made the repair free of charge. After switching the pulley, the technician sat me down and showed me tips on controlling the speed better. They have the lowest prices on industrial machines, and also have good quality tag paper, dot paper, and muslin at very low prices. Easily the best sewing machine shop in the bay area!

update: wow. these guys don’t go out of their way at all for the customer.
i tried working on a project since picking it up, and couldn’t make it through without the same issue coming up. i called apparel city and told them about the issue, and asked if they have some sort of guarantee or would look at it or something.
«guarantee one month. so, guarantee already expire.»
«oh, okay, maybe — «
” — okay?» click.
in my last review, i thought the «briskness» was worth it. i change my mind now. it’s not.

Apparel City is the best! They have absolutely everything thing you need for any level of sewing, and I’m always impressed by their customer service. They offer continued service and support after purchasing machines from them, and they are always quick and efficient.

I was on the bus doing a search for ‘Janome’ on my phone and SURPRISE this place came up in the search and was at the very next stop. I jumped out and found the place easily. They had exactly what I was looking for and the man who helped me was VERY nice. I think I lucked out all around when I found Apparel City ;) Thank you!

After some research on Unilocal,this seemed like the place for me. Fast service and the price is right, $ 55 per hour per machine. I have 2 singers– one new (5 yrs old) the other from 1953… The newer singer was having issues with the bobbin, and it turns out after a good oil and cleaning, the right sized bobbin made my machine usable again! Horray! Got this machine back after 6 days when they initally said 3 – 4 days, but it was memorial day weekend so the couple extra days didnt bother me.
The vintage machine was missing the bobbin cover, and the part needed to be ordered. So glad they were able to find the part since the machine was so old I wasnt sure since I couldnt find it with my own research. Got this machine about 2 weeks after dropping it off. Labor plus part– $ 67 … Priceless to have a 3^rd generation family heirloom in working condition. Works well now and very happy to have both my machines home !

My serger took a turn for the worse. I did something stupid that jammed the machine and sent the timing into some kind of space/​time continuum.
A coworker told me about Apparel City and I took my machine in. They were professional and nice. I use my machine professionally, but it is a home machine — not an industrial one.
They fixed it perfectly! For a reasonable fee. It worked better than it had when it was new and while they were fixing my error, they gave it a nice oiling and a little tune-​up, too. They know sewing machines.
The only reason that I give them 4 stars instead of 5 is that it took them a week to get to my machine and I was in heavy production at the time, so the time it took to fix my serger was a serious problem for me.
While I was there picking up my now working perfectly serger, I picked up some cheap serger thread, too from the bins in the front where they had slightly used thread for cheap!
I’ll never go anywhere else.

Okay so I have and industrial sewing machine I purchased off of Ebay 4 years ago. Its never worked. I tried to fix it myself as there is no were local that I trust to work on my machines. Usually I can get them to work. But this Pfaff 145 is a beast and obviously with all my skills, research and fidgeting I just kept making it worse. I had to go on a trip to Paso Robles so I started looking up repair shops. San Fran is about 5 hours from my house but on the way to where I was going. I found Apparel City.
I called they were super friendly. I showed up Its not a flashy shop but the staff was great. The gentleman asked what was wrong with my machine and I said EVERYTHING! I got into some specifics but essentially I had no idea. This was Friday at around 2pm. I told him I would be passing through again on Monday and if it could be ready GREAT if not then no biggie its been broken for years a few more months with out it won’t hurt my feelings. He says Monday should be great.
I was like «REALLY?»
ANNND really it was!
I stopped in 1pm and poof there it was with proof that it worked!
I am not kidding that fast!
AND cheap too!
I live in Eureka Ca and I would drive 5 hours just to go here if I had too. WHAT a great great staff and how dreamy that I finally after 4 years get to use my industrial machine to sew sew sew!
As other reviewers have stated its mostly industrial. BUT they know there stuff!
GO here ! I mean it.

I have purchased machines from Apparel City, and I have had them come to my studio to tune up machines as well. They are very professional, reasonably priced and efficient. But the thing that I am continually impressed with is how knowledgeable they are. They can figure out what is wrong with a machine practically by listening to it…
amazingly skilled people. Highly recommend them.

We used this place for our company sewing machine. After one of the main feeder gears went on our machine, it was the hardest thing to find someone who could help us. They fixed it within a week. And we were able to get our machine back and get our curtains completed for one of our campervan rentals. Woohoo. The price was reasonable too especially as it was an older machine.
Nick

This place is AMAZING. Well, if you know what you want…
Apparel City is a great place for scissors, getting your serger or industrial machine serviced, thread, zippers, marker paper, bobbins, needles, you name it, they’ve got it. The only problem is, you have to KNOW what you want. Everything they’ve got is in the back hiding in drawers of cabinets of some sort.
This place is THE place to pick up all your commercial and serger needs. It’s WAY harder to find home sewing accoutrements here. In terms of price, they are reasonable, if not cheap. Some other sewing machine shop tried to charge me $ 28 for a bobbin case! But the guy didn’t have my bobbins so I came here and bought a notcher, 3 bobbin cases, 12 bobbins, and a french curve for LESS than $ 28. GO FIGURE.
The moral to the story? Make a (detailed w/​model #s) list of stuff you need for your sewing needs. Take it to Apparel City and you won’t be disappointed.