Spex- Lincoln Park

I went for glasses/​lenses exam. The Doctor was great everything else was not great. They don’t explicitly ask you if you want an additional procedure that costs $ 50 above insurance. Instead they give you a handout and vaguely ask if you are «ok with it.»
They don’t even have you try on the first pair of lenses while you are there, you have to come back in a week. I would have been able to tell right away that the lenses they gave me wouldn’t work.
I can see their reasoning, but everyone should know this especially if they need to use their vision benefits ASAP. Eventually, they did their best to accommodate their policy to my situation
I don’t think they are trying to be shady, pushy, or misleading, but their procedures seem a little to cautious.

Spex is awesome. I had a pair of sunglasses that were missing the nose guard and the repaired for no additional cost. I would recommend this place to anyone. Definitely buying my next pair of sunglasses there. Customer service was fantastic!

Love my eye doctor! She’s the best and the receptionist staff are always so nice and pleasant!

They are amazing. Came in and they fixed my broken glasses immediately. Awesome place.

I liked Spex. Lots of choices, lovely stock. My salesperson, Millie, was knowledgeable and helpful. As for their prices, I find them to be as expensive as all the other boutique eye ware stores in the area.
Unfortunately, cool frames cost a lot-​here and every where else.
My experience with the service was a very good one. I have not decided whether or not to order glasses from Spex, but if I go elsewhere it will not be because of poor service.

I have mixed feelings about Spex. I found them through my insurance provider, and I wish I would have known more about their services before coming in. It was very expensive for a standard eye exam but the optometrist was kind and explained things well. I’m surprised to hear that people have had bad experiences with their staff, I always found them helpful.
If you aren’t on a budget, I’d recommend Spex on Clark. They have a lot of interesting frames but that all comes with a price.

I rarely review places publicly, but my experience with Spex was so remarkably terrible that I feel the need to let others know. They are incredibly rude and condescending. They are not knowledgeable about the vision industry. And to top it all off, they are charging VERY inflated prices for both their lenses and their frames.
If you’re looking for an exam and some news frames, almost anywhere else will be a superior experience and better value.

This place is amazing!
I’ve never been in a optical that was so welcoming,
The staff was so friendly as well as extremely helpful with their knowledge about eye wear.
The doctor Lindsey was so quick and the opticians who assisted me the three times i went in were Jeremy & Lesley.
At first i wasn’t sure if they would be able to help being that i am picky with frames and ordering because i have ran into many complications with previous optical s.
Needless to say they both assured me that they both had near 10 years of optical experience.
Great visit and i love my two new frames!

I went here last Friday for my contact lens exam. I was very pleased with my visit here. The staff were very friendly and helpful and Lindsay, the optometrist I saw, was terrific — knowledgeable and personable. I think I will return here again for my yearly eye check ups.

Maxwell C. I should have listened to your review– the optometrist and the front end staff need separate reviews. Dr. Luker is lovely and caring and will make your vision her priority. The sales staff was, in a word– snobby. There is just an unfriendliness about this place, I can’t understand all the unnecessary attitude. I had issues with my prescription and had to come back multiple times. After unfortunately becoming a ‘regular’ here, you’d think they’d be a little nicer to me. Don’t go here unless you like paying a lot and getting treated poorly.

I went to Spex to get my prescription late last year and got my glasses. Well as it turns out i broke my glasses and then decided to buy a new pair of glasses from Warby Parker (online place) which donates a pair of glasses for every pair you buy. When i went back to Spex to get a copy of my prescription they openly ignored me, made me wait for 45 minutes when I was the only person in the store and then told me that Warby Parker would screw up my lenses and I shouldn’t do have them do it.
After all of this they very reluctantly gave me my script but didn’t have the pupil distance. I asked for it and the sales lady told me my pupil distance information is their companies property and refused to give me it. She then said if I changed my mind she would sell me a «good» pair of glasses.
To end this if you want overpriced glasses, rude service and want to be treated badly go here. If not then avoid at all cost.

I changed to Spex from my old eye Doctor as he was too expensive. I was quite happy with Spex, they were friendly and weren’t pushy. Lindsay the eye Doctor was great and answered my questions. I liked the fact that you got freebies with your order too which no one else offers. My order came in quickly too, I’ll be back next year!

My god, save yourself the annoyance of being pressured into spending WAY more money than you want on glasses and go somewhere else.
I don’t know if Spex employees work on commission, but they certainly go for an uncomfortably hard sell. My boyfriend doesn’t have insurance, so we have to shoulder the cost of his glasses entirely. We went to Spex to get the exam and look around because it was close to my old apartment. We paid for the exam but realized the frames were just too much.
Fast forward about 9 months. Boyfriend has broken the glasses he eventually got from another place, so we’re back in the market for glasses. Enter Warby Parker to the rescue with great prices we can actually afford. All we need to do is call and get the prescription from Spex and the pupil distance.
THEY WONT RELEASE THE PUPIL DISTANCE. They WITHHELD information in a MEDICAL FILE just because we weren’t going to buy the frames from them. The woman actually said this was COMPANY POLICY. Seriously, maybe your policy should be to be nice to customers because now you’ve lost my business too and I love the La Font brand, so you could have made a pile of cash there.
Screw you, Spex. We’re just going to see if his previous optometrist has it on file and will provide it or we’ll pay for a new eye exam at a different place where we KNOW they’ll give us that info. We will NEVER, either of us, bother with you again.

I was hesitant to come in here given some of the poor reviews, but I was looking for a nice pair of glasses that I couldn’t seem to find at my previous eye doctor. I must say that I was extremely suprised by the great customer service (given the reviews I read)! Everything was done on time and I didn’t experience any ‘hidden fees’. While, this definitely isn’t the cheapest place to pick up a pair of glasses, I don’t think I was ever under the impression that it would be as they largely only carry the higher end frames.
Satisfied

It sucks how many people had a bad experience with this place. The lady assisting me was very helpful and attentive, and patient, which was the most important for indecisive me. I eventually was able to pick out a pair of glasses that I love. The only downside is it can be pricey without insurance (or even with it, in my case), and they add some other fees they don’t tell you about unless you inquire about why everything costs so much. However, one of the fees they added was a replacement fee, which I agreed to, because I work with crazy kids, and I never know if I’m going to get punched in the face one day.

I had a disappointing experience with Spex on Clark. It was especially disappointing as I had been a very satisfied Spex customer in the 1980’s.
I went in in June and ordered a pair of perscription sunglasses. When I came to pick them up, my vision was distorted. The saleperson, who I will call «Mary» as I don’t know her name, said I could try them for a few days to see if my eyes would adjust. They caused me to have headaches. When I brought them back in, the other employee Catherine examined them and noted that the lab had made one of the lenses incorrectly, and that Mary had not measured my base curve. This, according to Catherine, was necessary for a perscription such as mine.
When I picked them up, it was to find that the optical centers were off. The glasses only worked if I pushed them to one side. Catherine said they had the proper measurements and would send them back to the lab and get rush processing for me.
When I had not heard from Catherine that my glasses were in in two weeks, I called back to inquire. The manager Leslie told me that the glasses had not been sent to the lab. Even though Catherine had said she had the required measurements and expected the glasses in a week, Leslie stated that Catherine and Mary did not know how to remedy the situation. Leslie wanted to figure out how to fix my glasses. I wondered why she had not said that in either of her meassages she had left me in response to my request for the owner’s name and contact information.
The whole process took approximately two months. In addition, I received poor customer service throughout the process. I requested, and received, a refund and will regretfully be taking my business elsewhere. I was disappointed and confused by this poor experience. It was not what I expected from Spex on Clark!

This place is probably the hardest place I have ever reviewed. If I could rate the doctor and Spex the store separately, their ratings would be HIGHLY different.
Let me just get this out of the way: Dr. Luker is amazing. She is informative, casual, cares about you as a patient. She even re evaluated my eyes for free after I was having trouble with my first prescription.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about Spex, the store. Oh Spex. You are god awful. Your customer service brings the world back to the middle ages. I called and asked for pricing of services, and you could not give me ANY information. The only thing you could say was that b/​c I didn’t purchase contacts with you (who would now a days when online stores sellls them for 50% the amount they charge), and scold me for that.
When I called to make an appointment in the very beginning for a contact lens exam, I got an estimate that was totally different than the one on my bill, you secretly did a comprehensive exam (which I didn’t ask for) and billed me for that. SNEAKY.
Also, everyone in that store is so eager when someone walks in. Eager to SELL, SELL, SELL. Not eager to HELP.
This place is ridiculous, the only person holding this joint up is Dr. Luker.

This is the best eyewear store in Chicago, hands down. You simply cannot find frames like this in the city anywhere else. I had a great experience with the manager, Lesley, and they went out of their way to accomodate me. Finally, I found frames I actually like, which is a rare day. Worth every penny.

Wow, if only I had read the reviews before I stepped foot into this place.
After owning the same pair of glasses for 5+ years, I decided it was time for a new pair. The eye doctors here are on my insurance plan and nearby, so I made an appointment. Again… if I had even really researched this place prior to coming in, I might have known I was going to be dealing with a frou-​frou place. Anyway, I had my eye exam… which I was very clear about only wanting a glasses exam, since the insurance is contact or glasses, but not both. I mentioned an issue I was having with my eyes, and the doctor and I discussed at some point looking at other contacts that may help. As I went to check out and start looking for glasses, the woman helping me told me I could pay for the full year of contacts now, or later. Huh? I had to explain I was not in the market for new contacts, only glasses. Okay, so moving on.
The people in this place are just not friendly. It’s almost as though they can’t be bothered. I specified that I wanted the lower end of glasses, as some of these glasses are upwards of $ 500…let’s say the selection is a tad limited. I did find an awesome pair of glasses, miraculously in my price range… but it was when I was checking out that things got REALLY weird.
The woman helping me told me not to worry, my insurance covered a hefty amount. Before I know it, she’s telling me I owe X amount, with no explanation of what is covered, what the expenses were from, etc. After some pushing, she finally tells me some of the amounts, and I find out they’ve just added in a replacement fee on my glasses without telling me. Argued that I don’t want that, and as she’s doing more calculations, she says, well I can cut this and this from the overall amount, and then add that fee back in. Try again. I said, why don’t you give me the lower amount AND get rid of the fee? By this point I’m thinking, this is all really shady. So as she gives me the final dollar amount, I notice they’ve added an extra $ 100…what? Come to find out, the «discussion» I had with the eye doctor seems to constitute a contact exam. Yeah right. Very angry by this point, I speak to the manager, who quickly deducts that amount from the bill.
I will say, I got my glasses promptly and I love them… and regardless of the fact that they were on the lower end, they’re pretty awesome. But I will never recommend this place to anyone… Shady. With a very large capital S.

Found Spex off my insurance website — Completely awful service and experience.
My first visit — the eye doctor dilated my eye and then I was told to pick out glasses. About 3 minutes into the choosing of a frame, I couldn’t see straight and couldn’t see the prices on any of the glasses because of the dilation. I told them I thought It better I come back to chose frames when I could see, but was forced into a nearly $ 400 frame that aren’t very fabulous and I was really disappointed when they came in.
Over the weekend, I lost a contact and was on my last pair. They would not give me one lense without coming in for an appointment a week later. When I called back to ask if I could get into another location, I was hung up on and had to call the other Spex locations myself.
They are really high priced and snooty. Since when did doctor’s offices need to look trendy and offer shitty service?