Texas State Optical – Downtown

First and foremost, I have not had experience with any «advanced» services such as emergencies, diseases, or other special situations. Now that I cleared that:
I have been coming here for almost as long as I can remember getting eye exams — which dates back to my elementary school days (when my mom took my brother and I to the College of Optometry at UH for exams) until now as a young adult about to graduate college. It was here where I was introduced to my first set of contact lenses needed to play soccer in middle school, and also where I have gotten my eye exams every year since moving on from the office at UH.
The current optometrist, Dr. Nguyen, is fantastic at making the exam the complete opposite of what some would consider a chore. She is easy to conversate with and easily explains all the info the patient needs to know.
For the rest of the staff, I have ALWAYS had a pleasant experience with them. From scheduling an appointment, all the way through the pre-​doctor-​visit portion, it is all a recipe for an easy visit. I enjoy it here so much, I even got my fiancée hooked on this office!
Overall, I am always happy to visit and look forward to the time of year when I go. I am always satisfied with every pair of glasses and the contacts I get work just as they should. It is a pleasant experience every time.

I can’t speak for the optical but I will say the exam was excellent. I saw Dr. Taylor and she was very patient, thorough and she explained everything so that I could understand. Her «bedside manner» was excellent! I am on week 2 of waiting for my lenses however I have a very high prescription so it’s not unusual for it to take a while for the lenses to come in. I am using the same frames I had so I can’t speak to any of the frames being sold in store. I am rating the price «pricey» because I have insurance but the contact fitting was still $ 98 which was kind of steep for my taste.

I had this location of Texas State Optical order some frames for me that were not available in their store but were in a store on the East end of town. They got the frames transferred to me no problem and the price was fair so I was happy with that, however the problem was getting my lenses from them. My prescription is as simple as it gets, single vision, not too strong etc. But the store took over 2 weeks to get my lenses for me. Also they kept saying they would call me back to give me the status of my lens order but never did. When I finally went in to talk to them about the delay they told me the lenses were on «back order» which didn’t make any sense to me because they were just ordering simple lenses that should be available to any optical store with a few days notice. One of the employees told me not to feel bad because «it took over a month to get blank lenses with no prescription for fashion glasses». If it takes that long to get lenses then they are doing something wrong. Finally after 2 weeks i convinced them to call the supplier and the supplier said they could get me the lenses the next day if I got the same product from a different warehouse. They just didn’t take the initiative to find that out on their own. They told me they could have them cut and ready to go the day they arrive but the day they arrived they didn’t even call me to tell me. I went in anyways to check on it and the technician said he had the lenses but he wouldn’t cut them until the next day. Nobody in the store looked busy, there were zero customers and everyone was just sitting around. So I had to wait an extra day for no good reason.
I can understand if there are delays with shipping or whatever but when the company won’t call you back when they say and doesn’t follow through with what they say they will do, and doesn’t take the initiative to find out what’s going on when their supplier is slow, that’s a bad way to run a business.
For my next pair of lenses I went to RJ Cassidy on Westheimer and it took 2 days to get my prescription lenses for a different frame. I highly recommend that store as an alternative to TSO.