Al Phillips the Cleaner

Sent detailed photos of the damage to Customer Service department of the label of my cap. They were super helpful in assisting me with a replacement, however they also stated they had never seen one of their items damaged in such a way by proper dry cleaning and that this must have been due to aggressive chemicals or high heat used in the process.

John the owner is an abrasive, self-​centered tyrant. He has changed the rules on a daily basis and has taken away earned vacations and time off from his employees. His pricelist is based upon his telling his abused and overworked employees to profile customers and charge them based upon the labels in their clothing and how much you think you could suck dem dry. He is a thief with no respect, aloha or concern for da kine.

I’ve been coming here for about a year now and I am completely fed up with their Service and pricing! It is all over the place one day it’s up one day it’s down! I’ve been told I am suppose to receive a discount from one employee but not from the other. So what the hell is it then? It appears they make the rules up as they go. The staff is also unfriendly, unprofessional and downright rude at times. There are other people that do it much better and forget about their VIP service they got me to sign up for. Once again the rules changed after the fact when I signed up the employee told me that if I had five shirts in there I would get a discounted rate just like the coupon that was used before but when I showed up with five shirts they said it had to be six shirts so no VIP discount at all! Plus they wanted to charge me a dollar more Per shirt on top of it because my collar size is 17 ½ which they consider an extra large shirt. What crap is this! I took my stuff and walked out and I’m not going back!

I have been doing business with Al Phillips in Kailua for nearly two years. They are consistent, fair, and always kind. I highly recommend them.

I don’t recommend it. The staff is not pleasant to customers. My alterations were over priced and wrong. They took too much off and the shirt was too small. I spent $ 120 and I can’t even wear my shirt ($ 60 for the shirt/​$ 60 for the alteration). When I tried it on the lady said there’s nothing she could do.

I wanted to get a set of king sheets and pillow cases ironed only (not washed) and they wanted to charge $ 127! That’s for 2 sheets and 4 pillow cases. Seriously??? Never will go there again.

Horrible experience.
Dropped off a suit that I had worn once with a white shirt. It cost $ 60 to dry clean with a 2 day turn around time. It was for an important interview that I had in a week. When I returned after a few days my jacket and pants had multiple holes and scrap marks as if they took a metal brush to it.
I was very upset and demanded they pay for my jacket and pants, they refused citing I had the holes upon arrival. I said, this was not the case and that if I indeed had holes they should have at least notified me (call me) prior to doing ANYTHING to the suit so I could verify. They responded by saying they are sorry, but my suit was indeed damaged. It was not damaged.
I then realized I was not going to get reimbursed for my jacket so I said at least refund my $ 60 because common sense says if you find holes in a jacket and pants you need to verify with the customer or at least notify them so that your company is not blamed. I would not have my suit dry cleaned when it looks like a metal brush had eaten it!
I am currently of the understanding, I paid $ 60 to have my suit ruined. Lesson learned read Unilocal reviews before going to Kailua dry cleaners.

Dropped of my uniform for the marine corp ball and they had it ready in less than a week. Reasonably priced imo and good customer service.

Tried to have ONE pair of pants and TWO shirts dry cleaned. Quoted nearly $ 40. What? The place next door (Abe Cleaner?) is half the price for twice the service.
How is this place still open?

NEVER taking my clothes to ANY #alphillips again. They broke my uniform zipper for the second time and expected me to pay for it to be repaired. It’s aboslutely #poorserivce. I was told to call the Kailua location to speak to the owner and the employee there was just #unprofessional. DON’T take your clothes to #alphillipsthecleaner. I am absolutely #positive that my zipper was on prior to dropping it off and the company that replaced my zipper also said that from the looks of it, it was ripped off or snagged onto something causing the entire metal stopper and zipper head to come off. I asked to speak to the owner John or to have him call me and the female employee Noelle that I spoke to told me that he would NOT call me back and that was just it! She just offered to repair the zipper at my expense. #idontthinkso #thatsabignegative It is very upsetting and I will NOT take my service there anymore after going to them for the past 13 years.

Read my prior review,
I spilled something on my pants and tried to give one redeeming chance to al phillips, nope the owner has now barred me from service until i «talk to him», if you think i’m gonna grovel and stoop to your level you are sadly mistaken, i got my suit dry cleaned at Ceasars whom i think did a much better job, even it cost more, i’d rather pay more then give business to you buck-​oh, brah you stay all pilau alreadee, no need

I have been coming here on and off for 3 years due to convenience to our home. I used this company to clean my uniforms which I received a discounted price. I started bringing civilian clothes and it is very expensive. Today I had a 4 inch patch removed and another one sewed on and a 1 inch patch stitched. It cost me 42.00. When I asked the employee she basically dismissed me. The staff is not very friendly and act like you are doing them a favor. I will not return here.

Wish I could give no Stars! I’ve been customer 2004 and today was the day I decided I would no longer be a customer. To start off, my 15 year old son dropped off two shirts for alterations, which were done incorrectly. He requested one sleeve of each of his two Under Armour shirts to be cut and the Tailor decided to cut both. They then called my 15 year old to come get his shirts and he still had to pay the $ 35 tailoring fee. The owner was refusing to pay him for the shirts even though they messed up what he was requesting. My son and I went up and I requested to speak to the Owner, who was very rude and reminded me that we have not been there in a year, 365 to be exact as he stated. I reminded him that I was a loyal customer since 2004 and if he checked his records the last items they dry cleaned for my family were mink blankets, that they destroyed, because they didn’t know how to properly clean. Even after that I still remained a customer because out of all of the work I had done, that was the only one they messed up. Long story short, after telling the owner (male) what he could do with his non professional attitude and that they will pay my son for the lack of communication and poor service, he finally agreed pay him for the shirts they ruined. He then proceeded to try to have me removed from the store because I refused to come back later for him to write a check. All in all, my son received cash, I stayed in the store because clearly no one was going to remove me and they now have 2 XL shirts, brand new tags still on and they don’t have to worry about us coming back. The coward also was not even man enough to refund the money himself, he gave it to one of his employees, who all seemed so afraid of him. Lesson learned, Al Phillips the Cleaner, you lack professionalism and should not be in the business of customer care when you lack compassion and zero knowledge. Do us all a favor and leave Kailua.

My husband always drops off the clothes so he’s been a long term client. This, however, was my first experience with them. What a joke.
I dropped of 12 pieces totalling over $ 160. Came to pick them up with a 25% off coupon that I excitedly printed off from their website, and was shocked when I was told it was only accepted at drop off. Mind you, I hadn’t paid for anything yet so I asked what the reasoning was for the policy considering I hadn’t paid for my clothing yet. The response was, «Just because.» REALLY???
I will NO LONGER give my money to a business who’s customer service motto is «Just because.»
I wish I had read these Unilocal reviews first — always trust Unilocal

Quick same day. Only took 4 hours to get my suit cleaned and pressed. They were very happy and helpful. I will definitely go back.

After reading the list of bad reviews, I thought my experience would be different… I understand this place is busy however rude customer service has no excuses. Dealing with the inconsiderate employee at the front desk wasn’t the only circumstance that made me regret my selection. It was the fact that they don’t follow instructions, don’t call back or respond to your questions, give you the run around over the phone, and over all the lack of effort to correct the problem I had. The overpriced poorly accomplished alteration service that I had to pay for was just an extension of the terrible experience I had. Trust your instincts and don’t go here.

Wow! I’ve been a customer of Al Philips for over four years and they have been far from perfect (lost a $ 400 dress, put holes in my clothes) but the last two visits have ended my relationship with them.
A few months ago, my husband went to pick up his sport coat and it wasn’t there.
Two days later, they called to say that they gave it to the wrong customer and provided my husband with the phone number of the other client and asked him to to call and arrange pickup at the clients house himself. .. We were speechless.
Today was the final straw thanks to Peggy (the ‘manager’). They forgot to provide my VIP discount and refused to apply a credit for my future use. You would think for a long term client that spends roughly $ 300 – 500 a month in dry cleaning, they would do the courtesy of applying an account credit.
Peggy and owners — Take a look at your scores on Unilocal.See the trend?
We will be going to a new dry cleaners immediately and share my sentiments with friends and colleagues.

Garbage Customer Service!!! Manager Peggy is horrible in her decision making abilities! NEVER AGAIN!

I’m doleful to have to give this place one ninja star.
A few years ago they altered a blazer, dry cleaned it, and returned it to me wholly in under 6 hours for an event that evening.
However, my recent experience has been, well I wont even say flushed down the toilet because that would be too nice, more like put it in a full porter John at a construction site during a hot summer day in Las Vegas.
I’ll make this brisk, I dropped off 2 slacks, and 9 shirts; 3 of which were white and the rest multicolored. $ 109 not too pricy but not affordable either.
Four days later I pay, then proceed to grab my items of the rack and notice some streaks on the front white shirt.
I hang them back up open the plastic and notice it was filthy. OK, no big deal I understand things can sometimes be overlooked.
Then I notice the shirt behind it. (now reread that 2 more times)
Yes 4 shirts!
Now once the second shirt was put on the counter I am going to assume the owner or manager (guy with an Eastern European accent)
I was not expecting him to suck up, offer a discount, or anything. A simple apology and offer to do what I paid for them to do. (clean my s***)
But instead he started giving me excuses on how these clothes were ruined, its not their fault, and to stop inspecting them so closely. He also began to raise his voice at me.
Then he started negotiating with me, on how he will re-​clean 2 but not the rest.
I ended up apologizing to him and notified him I was just going to take all my stuff and he did not have to re-​clean any of it.
He replied in a loud voice «fine, you go, get your stuff and go!»
I ended up taking a magic eraser, yes you read that correctly MAGIC ERASER and cleaned up 2 of them nicely!
The other 2 well, had to take them to ABE Cleaner they are amazing!
So much for making this brisk.

Be very careful when doing business with these guys. The owner, John is a joke, and Peggy is not much better! When upper management doesn’t care about a ruined piece of clothing then of course the staff is going to act the same way.
Me and my wife brought 5 aloha shirts, slacks, skirts, and a designer Rachel Ray jacket into the ala moana location. Upon pick up my wife noticed that her brand new jacket was completely ruined. Several small brown stains, fraying of the lining, and the back of the jacket had several dark swirly stains on it. It looked like they had washed the jacket when we specified dry clean only. My aloha shirts had also been creased way wrong and one of the slacks we brought in was way shorter. A complete disaster!
My wife was extremely upset about her designer jacket. Sent the aloha shirts back for recreasing. We were told that all of these items were done at the Kailua store and they would have to be sent back down there. They would look at the jacket at the Kailua store and get back to us. They never did, I had to call the Ala Moana store back to ask what the status was. Spoke with Noël who was very pleasant throughout this whole process. Peggy, the general manager, told Noël to tell me this was a manufacturers defect and to take it back to the store we bought it at for a refund. Basically they were not willing to do anything about it. I told Noël that I would like to talk to Peggy but to no avail, never happened.
My wife and I came in on a Saturday, spoke with Noël who then called John «the owner». My wife was very polite with him but I could see her frustration and the fact that he was being rude to her based on where the conversation was going. I then got on the phone and tried to reason with John. This guy is a joke. Ended up having to get into a shouting match with him! He was very threatening and extremely unprofessional!
He finally agreed to give us half of what the jacket was worth but the amount of trips we had to take to the store and the arguments with the friggin owner was pathetic! !
Long story short don’t take your clothes there even if its just a sock. They will ruin it. Oh yeah my nice Tori Richards aloha shirts had stains all over them too! I’m a firm believer in karma and this stuff will come around to bite you on the ass someday. Good luck keeping the doors open.