French Dry Cleaners

So sad to say that this place did NOT do an awesome job on my wedding gown… I paid $ 250 and my dress seems to have burns and white patchs on it! my wedding is Sunday and trying on my dress yesterday I am so disappointed that there was more than one spot on it! When I had picked up dress I pointed out the spot and the lady said, «no, it’s fine. It’s good!»… So I figured maybe one spot wouldn’t hurt… BUT Seeing my dress yesterday… Boy am I disappointed! I am sad to say I would NOT recommend the place.

If you ignore the reviews and go here any way you will regret it. Two black shirts ruined and stained with some sort of chemical. The owner denies responsibility of course. Not to mention I was constantly sending creased shirts back after they were done poorly. This place is absolutely worthless. The worst cleaners in Oakland.

I’ve been coming here since I graduated college and had to have pressed shirts for work. I’ve gone to other cleaners out of convenience at times, and have found French Cleaners to be as good as any other. That said, the prices are very reasonable and the service great.
Also, for the women who commented that they wrote on her shirts, that is a common practice at cleaners. I’ve taken new shirts to two others and have had them do the same. It is an industry wide practice.

I WILL NEVER COME HERE AGAIN!
I would give less than a 1 star if permitted by Unilocal.
Here’s a laundry list (pun intended) of reasons why:
1) They wrote on my shirts. They do this to track your shirt (last name, last four digits of phone number). Some shirts got lucky and had ink on the label; for one, they wrote directly on the shirt collar, despite the fact that there was a label to use. The don’t ask permission and are unapologetic when you ask them about it.
2) They ruined my wife’s blouse. When I went to complain, the manager/​owner was condescending and mean-​spirited.
3) They don’t heed care instructions. They randomly choose what gets dry cleaned and what doesn’t, without regard to care instructions, which is why the elastic in my wife’s blouse went bye-​bye.
4) The manager/​owner is hugely unprofessional. S
I should have known something was wrong, because when I picked up my shirt, someone ahead of me was complaining about her work. She, again, was mean and condescending. At one point, she said «why don’t you sue me in small claims court then.»

This place is so bad, that I think the only reason they can stay in business would be to launder something other than clothing. I don’t know how else they would with such terrible reviews when there are at least 10 other dry cleaners on the same street. I made the mistake of going here before reading the reviews. I read them after and hoped I would be one of the lucky ones, but sadly they proved me wrong. The lady did not have the pants I dropped off for repair done a day after she said it would be completed (8 days later! 8!) and laughed when I asked for it back. If that wasn’t bad enough she then turned to her colleague and spoke about me in whatever non-​english language they speak pointing at me just in case I was wondering if it was me they were talking about.
I honestly have no clue how they stay in business. Please note that the laundering reference is only speculation driven by my disgust and wonder at the fact that they are able to stay in business. Maybe they get enough clueless first and last time clients like me. Don’t be like me.

As bad as advertised.
I picked up five shirts yesterday, and each was wrinkled like it’d been ironed by… well, me. When I pointed this out to the attendant, she just laughed and kept saying «OK.» It was incredibly frustrating. But I stayed cool because I knew part of the problem was the language barrier. Still, the work was poor and they weren’t accountable, so I won’t be back.

they wrote in all of my shirts after i specifically asked them not to!

This place lost my shirt. I have been trying to call them and there has been no answer. Never in my life have I had to check dry-​cleaning, I am not a weekly goer per se, but I’ve always gotten back what I paid for. I was really tired the other day, picked up my dry cleaning, and have now noticed that my shirt is missing. This place is not only quite expensive in the dry-​cleaning world, but they lost a shirt?! This is the first time this has ever happened to me. NEVER GO HERE.

Unfortunately there’s not an option for a half star on Unilocal.I had a hole in the front pocket of my jeans, so my girlfriend dropped them off here. They said the jeans would be ready eight days (!!!) later. So, uh, OK, we’ll deal with that. The jeans were supposed to have been done yesterday but we didn’t have time to pick them up. My girlfriend stopped in there today to pick up the jeans, and they hadn’t been touched! She asked what happened and they said something about being busy or having had forgotten or something else. Fed up, my girlfriend asked for the jeans back to take them elsewhere. As she was leaving, the woman behind the counter started speaking in another language to her co-​worker in a loud an obnoxious fashion, gesturing at my girlfriend in an obviously disparaging way. Do not EVER give business to these people… they have no work ethic and do not value their customers.

French Cleaners shrunk my designer coat and top. They obviously threw them in the washing machine. When I brought them back, the clerks laughed at how ridiculous the jacket looked. When I talked to manager Chris she agreed to pay, but when I came to collect the money she agreed to pay, she denied that the jacket was cleaned there and refused to even reimburse the cleaning cost. $ 300 evening jacket is now a rag. She simply denied that they shrunk the top. I regret the 3 years I was a customer here. BRING CLOTHES HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK. You will not be reimbursed if they destroy them and they may well destroy them. This place deserves no stars at all.

I was all prepared to give this place compliments despite the nay-​sayers. Then I put on a shirt and noticed that someone wrote the last four digits of my phone number on the inside of my collar! This was not there before I dropped my shirt off. Come to find that several of my shirts had writing inside the collar as well. Who does that?
Pass.

they have inspired me to write my first review.
If you want your shirts come back even more wrinkled, and have someone argue with you saying that it’s not their fault, then please go there! horrible customer service!

Super over priced! They do how ever have your items ready when they say they will. You would think they would want their neighbors business but it doesn’t matter is you are a family friend or an employee they charge you the same amount. SUPER EXPENSIVE

The worst place anybody could possibly bring their clothes. They cannot even take care of simple buttoned-​up shirts. I brought about 6 shirts a couple of weeks ago. When I picked them up…
…ALL SIX SHIRTS WERE WRINKLED. IRON-​WRINKLED!
One was worse than the others and I have not yet been able to get rid of the wrinkles! I have washed it a couple of times, ironed it at higher temperature than recommended… nothing yet. There is one wrinkle that’s in the back of the shirt and goes from one side to the other. How could anybody dare to give back a shirt like that to a customer!!!
And I had to iron all the other shirts myself, too.
And, on top of that, as if that wasn’t enough already, they wrote with a black pen on the inside of the collar. Granted, nobody will see this but me, but since when is it okay to take the liberty to write on other people’s shirts?
Needless to say I am super extra completely pissed. If they cannot do their job, they should stop. And more than their mere incompetence, what they did to my shirts still is an issue today!
I wish I could have given a negative rating to bring down their average even lower.
Stay away. For your sake, stay away…

Horrible. Pressed creases one shirt, didn’t press the other shirt at all, and the last shirt had a huge iron shaped burn on its back like a f***ing cartoon. Charged me for the attempted repair, which failed, and didn’t reimburse me for services or the shirts.
Don’t go to the other place on Piedmont either though! Just don’t go to Piedmont Ave for dry cleaning, I’ve had a few things ruined by now.

Terrible customer service. They’ve lost me as a customer.
I dropped off two shirts on a Tuesday morning for laundry and was told I’d have them back on Wednesday. The woman who took the shirts inspected them for stains and found none. I was given a collection receipt for $ 3.00 and told to come back after 6:00pm on Wednesday.
I then received a call on Wednesday morning from a lady with an impenetrable accent and told that they couldn’t press the shirts but only wash them. I couldn’t understand this given that they had laundered and pressed one of those shirts the previous week. Since I could barely understand what she was saying I asked her to just wash them and that I’d press them myself. She said «okay, come after 6pm today».
When I showed up at the store, they brought me my shirts unwashed and now featuring two yellow stains at exactly the same spot on both shirts. They said that the reason they didn’t clean the shirts was that they needed dry-​cleaning and not laundering and that they had only given me a receipt for laundering.
On asking why they hadn’t told me this over the phone, the woman said nonchalantly that maybe it was a mistake. She refused to accept that the prominent stains were their doing, even though she was the same person who carefully looked over the shirts when I first gave them to her.
The staff barely speaks any English and the one woman who does is just terrible at her job. Never going here again.

Last week I took in a dress that needed to be pressed. There was a fast turn-​around time, but when I went to pick it up, the woman at the front desk said «Oh, we couldn’t manage to get that stain out.» …This dress was brand new (I just wanted to dry clean it after it had been shipped — I don’t really enjoy that cardboard box smell), and now had about 5 black stains on it. All they had to do was admit to their mistake, apologize, and offer to fix it. Instead, they argued with me for about 30 minutes about how I should let them clean it again, while placing blame on me for bringing in a stained dress!
There was a simple solution, and yet these cleaners would rather argue with me than own up to their mistake. I don’t think it really needs to be said, but I did end up taking my dress (without paying of course!) and left to go find another cleaner. Maybe this is a good place and I just had bad luck, but I won’t ever frequent this business again. I even created my Unilocal account just to write this review.

I was a regular at French’s for a few years. A few months ago I returned a shirt (still in the plastic protective wrap) because a large crease had been pressed into the shirt a few days before. It was unwearable with the crease. The front desk person said that it would cost $ 5, even though her business had caused the problem. I was surprised, especially since I was a regular and thought that this familiar person valued my business. The conversation was short, clear, and calm. No compromise was possible.
I walked down the street with the shirt in hand and found a new cleaner who guarantees the quality of her work. It’s much less convenient (location, location, location) but much more reliable (total peace of mind).

Shirts are $ 1.50 each now. Not a big deal. But curious when I asked «did you raise your prices recently?» I was met with a befuddled ‘no.‘
Despite the glaring sign outside the parking lot from the adjacent bookstore, you can still park there for dry cleaning drop-​off/​pick-​up. In case you’re worried some towing service will swoop in during your three-​minute visit.

Lured by their posted offer to clean my shirts for .89 cents, I gathered up my dry cleaning pile and headed to French Dry Cleaners.
After inspecting my ball of wrinkled cargo I was informed by the cranky b*tch at the counter that my shirts were too small to fit on the laundry press so she would have to charge me $ 7.00 per shirt to dry clean them.
Of course I was already there so I let her take them, which in thinking it through is probably what they bank on people doing.
Don’t believe the hype! It’s good old-​fashioned bait and switch at it’s finest.