EF Gomez Cement Contractor

There’s a clear pattern of EF Gomez not following through with customers. We had the Son of Gomez show up. I could tell he really wasn’t interested in doing the small residential job of redoing our driveway. He seemed as if he was in a hurry but once he found out my employer, came around and seemed as if he might be a responsible representative for his company. NOT. After many phone calls and messages, NADA. Fortunately we didn’t waste a lot of time with a business that makes a mockery of the word business, and will be spreading the word that they cannot be trusted to do what they say.

Excellent — start to finish! Scratching my head over the negative reviews — my experience couldn’t have been better — Gomez were responsive, professional and I’m very happy with the work they did. Based on my experience I have no hesitation recommending them.

The customor service from EJ Gomez Cement leaves alot to be desired. We had contacted them to give us an estimate on redoing our driveway, they took 3 days to return our call. Once they did they came out spent all of 10 minutes with us and then took another 3 days to send an estimate. At that time they came in with the lowest bid, so we decided to move forward with them. Called them, left a message that we wanted to move forward and schedule. 1 week later still have heard nothing. In the mean time, another contractor came by gave us an estimate within 1 day and at a lower price. Would never recommend this company POOR POOR customer service!!!

Elijio and his crew just finished restoring the highly deteriorated surface of my 107 year old foundation on Potrero Hill. The preparation, bonding, mortar work and clean up was excellent. I highly recommend them.

I received a Notice to Repair Sidewalks Within 30 Days and contracted with EF Gomez Cement. I signed a credit card authorization for payment. When the 30 day deadline was almost up, Gomez still hadn’t started, so I called every day. They finally did it, just before the deadline.
This is a corner building. One side is on a flat street and the other side on a slightly sloped street. On the flat street they did the typical smooth square finishes. However, on the sloped street, they did swirls, some of them with deep grooves. Swirls? It looked unfinished and defective.
I have seen many cement squares all over the city, smooth or with shallow parallel straight grooves, but never swirls. I walked around two hilly neighborhoods and saw a few squares with swirls, and none had deep grooves. I saw hundreds of squares with the shallow parallel grooves.
I was dissatisfied and called the company three times. Irma said Octavio would call me. He never did. Two months later, Gomez finally debited my credit card. (Why did this take so long?) They charged my card higher than invoiced by $ 158.27. I called and was told that the $ 158.27 was for the permit. Again, fine, but this should have been documented on my invoice. Irma then sent me the documentation.
I again brought up the swirls. Irma finally set up a meeting at the property with Octavio. He said that when slipping is an issue, the contractor must finish the cement with grooves to impede slipping. (Why wasn’t I simply told that over the phone?) I was fine with that and would have been fine with parallel grooves, but not with the deep swirls of varying depth. If they were going to do something unusual, they should clear it with the owner. The swirls were ugly, deep, and discolored.
Then, to my surprise, over time, the deepest grooves were gone! It seems that pedestrians wear them down and the deep grooves become shallow grooves. Better… though still not preferred. Why didn’t Octavio tell me that the deep grooves would smooth down? Why didn’t anyone ask me if I had a preference for parallel grooves vs. swirls?
I decided to do more research. Although Octavio told me the rough finish was required because of the slope of the street, it’s not true. A rougher finish is needed if the slope of the street is 10% or more. My slope was 5%. At less than 10%, transverse parallel lines are required, not swirls. Swirls are not only not required – they are not even mentioned in the regulations. As a result, I again asked for, and, after threatening to file a licensing board complaint, was told to expect a small partial refund on my credit card. Four days later and still no credit, so I called again. The credit finally appeared.
I am dissatisfied about having to push them to do the work on time, about their not returning phone calls, about their delay in debiting my credit card, about the discoloration, and about the deep swirls, and about having to threaten a licensing complaint to get them to refund some money. Although I have used EF Gomez in the past and been reasonable satisfied, I will never use EF Gomez again. Customer service is unacceptable and explanations are absent.

My sidewalk got tagged for repair and I remembered that about 20 years ago I used EF Gomez. At that time I was impressed by the reasonable price and the common sense manner of the owner. So I made an appointment for an estimate and the owner’s son Octavio came by and was just as reasonable as his father. The work was done as he described and I’m very happy with the results.

Like many property owners in SF, my sidewalk was tagged for repair. I am very pleased with the service i received from the Company. They had the best price of the 3 bids I obtained. They showed up on the day they were suppose to. I was also replacing my sewer line while the cement was torn up, and the company was cooperative in working around the plumber’s schedule. After the pluming was done, they were back immediately to cover the remaining cement. My job probably involved more trips because of the sewer work, but they did not complain or ask for more money. Even though I covered the wet cement someone was able to write into it. The company is coming back to see if they can fix it at no charge. I was prepared to pay for them to return, but did not have to.

This outfit is probably the worst contractor I’ve ever dealt with in 15yrs of working with contractors.
1) The office is staffed by people who don’t speak English and have no idea what’s going on. All they do is say «someone is a calling you back».
2) They don’t keep their appointments. They showed up half an hour late and didn’t even call to let me know. All they said was «the traffic was bad».
3) They promised a bid in one week. After two weeks of nothing, I called the same window fogger in their office only to be given the run around. Finally I get a hold of the original person I spoke with and they said they’re too busy to take on any work.
This is definitely a family owned business in the worst way possible.
AVOID AT ALL COST!

I received a Notice to Repair from the city. Called a number of contractors and got the runaround — «job’s too small» «job’s too large», «get a bigger contractor.» «get a smaller company”– and I was getting pretty frustrated. Then someone mentioned EF Gomez and am I glad! The labor day week-​end was coming so I expected a long wait for an estimate. Octavio arrived the next day, on time, gave me a number of very reasonable options and was the ultimate professional. At that point, we made a decision to replace the whole sidewalk in front of the house and I geared myself for the long wait to start .
I was wrong. The crew started the very next week (delayed only by the labor day week-​end), took out the sidewalk in the morning, leaving it open for the arborist to trim the roots of the tree that had done the damage. Then they poured the very next day. Two days and the sidewalk looks perfect! The crew, the office staff, and Octavio were courteous, professional and experts in what they did, and they took great pride in doing an excellent job. I am very, very happy! The sidewalk couldn’t look better and the installation was as painless as can be.
I give EF Gomez the highest possible recommendation for concrete work

Someone came out to give me an estimate then never contact me again. I have called them three times and never gotten a return call. Can’t comment on actual work as a result. The only reason I give them more than one star is at least they showed up for the appraisal — just wish they would have followed up or at least told me they didn’t want to do the work…

After my general contractor demo’d & repoured my steep driveway ramp twice (and upset the neighbors with all the noise and dust) and cars still scraped, EF Gomez came in and did the job right.
They responded quickly to my initial phone call requesting a bid, got the necessary SF Streets and Sidewalks appointments within days (after the horrible guy at the counter told me it would take months!) and made the ramp work on the first try.
Huge relief!
They were great, would definitely use them again.

We’ve used EF Gomez 2 times for concrete work. Two years ago we had all of the sidewalk squares in front of our house replaced, after being «tagged» by the city. Gomez offered us a lower price to do all the squares, rather than just replace the very bad squares that had been tagged. They showed up on time, and did a nice job.
This week we used EF Gomez again. This time to tear out a concrete wall next to our driveway, so that we could «green» the space. Once again, they did a nice job, on time and on budget.
They were very pleasant to deal with at each stage of the job: estimate, scheduling, and the actual work. We are always pleased to find a family owned business that does good work, and we can recommend.

VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE = NO, THANK YOU
First off, they are VERY difficult to get a hold of. Even trying to contact them to get an estimate was hard enough. Second, the person who did come by was half an hour late, and not even a phone call to inform me that he was running late. And last, it is now a month and a half since the person came around to take measurements and I have not heard from them since. They must be doing well even without my business, so good for them

Truly one of the worst experiences with service I have ever had. My partner and I did not want to post this review, but felt like we had to. I do not know how they are with any other clients, but we are very easy going nice people. We have never posted a bad review for anyone. But the way they dealt with us, the absolutely HORRIBLE job they performed, late, over budget, and a total disaster is worth pursuing claims with the Better Business Bureau over let alone posting a negative review here. Get other bids from other qualified contractors and do not trust their slick style promising you the world and delivering a terrible product, like we got. I gave them every chance to make their work right but they did nothing, and ignored us. Unfortunate attitudes with all 3 people i spoke with and Awful work! AVOID.

We just had a basketball court installed by EF Gomez and it looks great. The crew was responsible and thoughtful and did a fantastic job.

In this day and age of technology a bad review can spread like wild fire, with people leaving out details and not telling whole truths, just pieces. That being said I wanted to share my positive experience with this company.
I had some work done on the front of my house. I needed to have my sidewalk repaired and the concrete in my garage done. I called EF Gomez and had the pleasure of speaking with Irma who scheduled the estimate with Mr. Gomez. The next day Mr. Gomez came to my home gave me an estimate which I agreed to.
The next morning (Yes the next day at 7:30 am) Mr. Gomez showed up bright and early with his crew to begin demolishing the sidewalk and concrete in the garage. Mr. Gomez and his workers were extremely efficient and knowledgeable when it came to my questions. They took the time to explain and walk me through what needed to be done and why. This to me is extremely important because it is how you build rapport with your customers and this company most definitely has, not to mention my sidewalk looks wonderful and my garage finally slopes correctly which allows the rain water to drain properly and not back up the way it used to before it was replaced.
The pride taken in the work was obvious and this is why I strongly recommend their services to my family and friends.

Think twice before you hire them. They replaced the sidewalk and driveway at the front of my house 769 25^th ave, San Francisco. Two squares are with cracks and I can’t put my car in the garage, because they didn’t do the slope right.
To EF Gomez :
Unfortunately you forgot to mention, that your company had to redo the concrete couple days after it was finished. It was done so poorly that the street building inspector refused to sign it off and asked you to brake it and to do it again. Couple days after your guys demolished the side walk and concrete in the front of the entrance, but they didn’t remove the drive way, they kept saying that they will make it work. We never played a role in slopping the driveway, YOU were hired to do this. The only thing that we did is helping with the forms for the steps second time, because we noticed that your guys are not capable to read the drawings and follow them.
You guys didn’t use any compactor for the soil by preparation and there are cracks on the sidewalls. Do you believe this is normal? Is your answer once again — No warranty?
I don’t need a warranty for the car (as you saying) I need a warranty for the work that your company had done.

I used them to replace «squares» of concrete outside of my house. This was a mandated repair from the city which required a permit, etc. Basically, all that I did was make the phone call. They took care of everything else. Very nice work. In 2005, it cost $ 850 to demolish and replace the sidewalk squares. Not that useful a number as I can’t remember the number of squares replaced. Definitely more than 4 and fewer than 10.
I have just called them again (now 5 years later) to patch some concrete. I’ll update the review.
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I’m updating the review now in July 2010. Boy, times have changed. I called them to have one square of cement replaced outside of my house. I was told an email estimate would be sent to me. I hung up and realized that no one had taken my email address, so I called back to give it to them. Two days went by with no estimate. I called back again to request the estimate (trying to give them business here!) and was again told that it would be emailed to me. It arrived about 10 hours later. Ok fine, busy day perhaps.
I signed the contract for $ 250 (though on the phone I was told that this must be a mistake b/​c their minimum is $ 350). I signed the contract, sent in my 10% down, and waited for them to call me to schedule the repair. I waited. I waited. Still, I waited. Many, many days go by. Finally, I call them to find out when they will begin the repair. I am told that they will «do it tomorrow». Sounds good. Tomorrow comes and no one arrives to do the work. I call again. Mind you, each time I call, you have to start at the beginning to give your name, work site address, what you are having done etc. It’s a pain. Anyway, I am told (no apology here) that the will be out tomorrow (again). They show up (yea!) and do a lovely job on the concrete.
Unfortunately, unlike the company my neighbor down the block used, E.F. Gomez does not cover the fresh cement with plywood or any other «vandalism» deterrent. Instead they simply put a folding sign over it. Well, fresh concrete is VERY attractive. I even found myself wanting to write my name in it. Apparently, about 20 minutes after the concrete was finished, «Patrick and Gigi» couldn’t resist the temptation to write their names in the fresh concrete to memorialize their love. Grrr… I’m not liking them much right now.
I call E.F. Gomez on Thursday (day of the repair) to explain that although the 5 inch chip that the city made me fix is now repaired, their fresh work is marred by graffiti. I realize that the graffiti is not the fault of E.F. Gomez, but I do think that they should have taken reasonable steps to ensure that it was not so tempting. Since the other company put down plywood for my neighbor, it seems that this is a reasonable request. I explain the problem and speak to Maria. She transfers me to someone else who says that they can’t really fix the problem, but they can put a «skim coat» on to reduce the imprint. Fine by me. I just don’t need to look at «Patrick loves Gigi» for the next 40 years. I am told that they will come Friday to do the repair. On Friday, an employee of E.F. Gomez comes to remove the folding sign, but disappears and does no «skimming.»
My husband (I thought the manly voice might get a better result) calls Monday morning. He explains the Friday No Show (no apology) and is put on hold for 5 minutes. Finally, he is told that he can leave a message for an «estimator.» It is Monday at 3:37 and no one has called us back.
Sheesh…as we speak someone from the company is arriving outside. Apparently they will not be calling back but simply sending someone. Cement now looks great + man is staying nearby for 20 minutes while it sets to deter «vandals/​Patrick & Gigi.» That’s quite nice.
Now I am torn. I was going to give 1 star («Eek! MethinKs not.) because this was a ridiculous effort to get one square of concrete repaired (6+ phone calls + 3 weeks of time). However, since they have actually seen the project through (albeit with very unfortunate communication efforts), I will raise my review to 2 stars which in Unilocal terms means «I’ve experienced better.»

EF Gomez did some work in my back yard — replacing some old steps and expanding the staircase area. They were recommended to me my a garden designer who had worked with them several times before and she was very happy with their work.
They were professional and reliable throughout the project (on time, on budget, aware of codes, accessibility, etc) — were VERY careful to keep the work area and path through the house clean (no small feat, frankly) and were very mindful of working with the 100 year old retention wall around the staircase. I have another project coming up and will definitely contact them for it.

I got bids from many contractors for my driveway job. The driveway on the home we bought was too steep, and our cars would scrape bottom on the breakovers. When getting bids for the work, the vast majority of contractors showed up late, or not at all for our appointments, or could not communicate effectively.
During the first round, we went with one contractor who gets 5-​star reviews on Unilocal,but ultimately he backed out of the job, because it was too difficult or something — after we’d made all our plans he just called one day and said, I don’t want your job. Okay, whatever.
So, I do a round two of calling and getting bids. Despite the existing single poor review, I called EF Gomez anyway. Octavio came out, was polite, professional, very straightforward and was able to answer all my questions. The bid with a description of everything they would do was available within a couple of days.
I was impressed enough with the way Octavio handled the review and bid that we decided to go with EF Gomez. After sending them our deposit, they called to make an appointment to start the work, and on the appointed day, a swarm of workers showed up and went to town.
The work was done efficiently and with superb quality. We had some tricky problems that were not originally within scope of the job, including reseating a drain grate and sewage port, but they successfully took care of those items with no additional charge.
Unlike the other review, we had no pressure to settle right away. After the work was finished, they sent the invoice for the remainder. I had a minor job to sort with the office, asking them to send someone out to finish a rough edge to my satisfaction, and once they did that we settled.
The only critique I have to offer is that their office could use better coordination, but this is a minor issue, considering the quality of the work they perform. I have no problem recommending them for any concrete job that needs to be done, and will call them first in the future.