Kite's Custom Dry Cleaners

Kite's pressed my wedding grown before my wedding and did an excellent job. After my wedding, Kite's preserved my gown. I couldn't be happier.

I have been using this cleaner for 20+ years, but in the last 5 or so have thought of changing. The clothes are, as far as I can tell, cleaned nicely, but they are pressed as if someone had taken a rolling pin to pie crust.  Anything that has stretch to it frequently comes back to me a little wider and longer than I when I brought it in (yes, I have measured; differences have been as much as 1.5 inches in sleeves, hem).  I have asked that everything be "blocked"  and that seemed to help initially, but now works inconsistently. 

    I recently had a cashmere tunic returned with sleeves approximately 1 in longer and hem 1.5 in longer.  I can still wear it, but I can't understand why they do this.  I complained to the front desk person (all of Kite's front desk people are careful and helpful) who suggested bringing the item in and letting them redo.  I did, but the result was unchanged, although they did include a calendar when they returned the sweater. With that sweater I also brought back a pair of pants which had an unpressed lining; this was remedied too, at no charge, but once again showed the inconsistency of the pressing system.  

    An additional problem that frequently occurs is the overpressing of seams, causing the clothing to look old when it is not. Pressing to the point of shine also makes new look old very quickly. Kite's has been cleaning my clothes for many years and has never lost anything that they have not eventually found.  They hire excellent people to work with the public, and I appreciate that.  But for the prices the customer pays, they badly need to work out some finishing issues.

This company ruined my wedding dress. Thankfully, I had already worn it! I took my dress there to get it cleaned after my wedding. They estimated it would take about 3 weeks. I got a phone call that it was ready, and went in to pick it up. My dress still had cake on the bodice, and the only thing that looked clean is that there was no longer dirt on the train. They offered to try again. So I waited another 3 weeks. I didn't receive a call this time, so I called them to find out if it was ready. They said it was, and I went in again. My dress was ruined! It was yellowed at every seam and had yellow stains all over it. It looked like they aged my dress 20 years! The material looked like it was about to fall apart, each thread across the bodice had pills. I was furious and in tears. They offered to give it to me free.

I brought my gown to them after I had had my dress let out and needed the seams steamed open. This is the second cleaner I had been to to steam the seams open from where it was altered, and I should have left it at the previous one because they did at least 2 of the three seams correctly. Anyway, I decided that since Kites does wedding gowns especially, that they might be best qualified to finish the job, even though they were going to charge $150 to do it (the previous place was only going to charge me $40, but because they didn't do it right completely, they didn't want to charge me at all) I dropped my dress off at Kites, showed them the seams, watched them write down that the one side needed the seams steamed open, we looked over the entire dress, etc. When I went the following Friday to pick it up (a week before I leave for my wedding), the side was still not steamed open!!!!! There are just two huge folded lines still running down the outside of my dress!! Needless to say, I was very upset and they insisted they would have it for me the following Monday (yesterday) by 5:30 and would have it done right. So I went in yesterday ready to demand that since they didn't do it right the first time, they should not charge me, or at least not $150. Well, the side was steamed open, not as well as I thought it should have been, but the big deal was MY DRESS WAS RIPPED!!!!!! My dress has folded fabric all across the dress and there was a tattered edge hanging down beneath one of the folds in the front part where my thighs would be. I lifted the fold and there was rip (no seam here) all the way from the left to the right of the fabric!!! It was not like that when my seamstress let out the dress (she and I discussed this) nor was it ripped when I was showing them the dress when I first brought it in. Well, they began insisting that they didn't do it and here is the best part: THEY STILL WANTED TO CHARGE ME $150!!!!!!! They were not going to let me take the dress. I insisted they get the manager on the phone and after many tears and getting my fiancee on the phone, they offered to only charge me 1/2 and to have their tailors fix it! I said, there is no way I am paying for this and their is no way anyone in their company is touching this dress again. Eventually, they consented to let me take the dress, though the managers little teen daughter that was there was insistent that I should have to pay for it. I was very upset by this experience, and perhaps, if Kite's would have been willing to have good customer service and common sense from the very beginning, I wouldn't be telling everyone I can about this so they know and are warned. If they would have admitted that someone there ripped my dress and offered to fix it or pay for it to be fixed before I found the rip, things might be different. I should have insisted they pay for the repair as well, but as it is, all I want is my dress in one piece for this Saturday so I don't have to worry about it any more. If there would have been other people in there, too, the situation might have been resolved much quicker.

When they came out to install the drapes, they only installed one side. The lady came out to collect payment I informed her that the job was unfinished with only one of the drapes installed. The drapes also took about three months longer than expected. At that time, she apologized but told me that she had made a mistake only charging me for one drape. I threw a fit because I had a contract, my husband decided to pay the bill and we never used them again. I was so upset because I used this company for my dry cleaning. I even wrote a letter to the owner and she did not even care enough to write me back.

THEY ARE VERY FAST. THEY DO GOOD QUALITY WORK. I USUALLY HAVE IT BACK THE SAME DAY.