San Marcos Tattoo Emporium

If you’re looking at this place to get your first tattoo, PLEASE get quotes from other artists first.
I have a loteria sun tattoo on the back of my arm. I wanted to add sun rays and a halo (probably an inch and a half) around the sun, because the previous sun rays were too light on my skin. I was quoted «$ 300– $ 350» dollars, and was told that it would take «2– 2 and a half hours»
I’m not an idiot. I have many tattoos, so I know what my tattoo would have cost. I’m all for paying the price of an artist’s work, but my request was easily less than $ 100, and it would have taken 45– 1 hour.

I have never had such an amazing experience as I had with San Marcos Tattoo. The artwork that Brian drew up was amazing and my tattoo looks so good. What a professional shop and friendly atmosphere. Thank you! I will definitely be back.

I recently received a tattoo from Justin Taylor and it was a very unpleasant experience. He was very pushy and wouldn’t let me give my opinion on which colors to choose. He was very pretentious about his art and told me my opinion didn’t matter because I wasn’t an artist. Very rude, very pushy and made me very uncomfortable. Not getting my tattoo finished here.

I came in several months back and got a tattoo by Amanda. I was incredibly pleased with the work she did and the price. She was also pleasant to talk to during the tattoo. I plan on coming back to get more work done by her.
That being said, I’ve brought two different friends in here for tattoos since then and had the same, awful experience both times. Both friends liked the work (and price) of my tattoo by Amanda so we stopped in to price their ideas and see if they could it get done that day. Both times we were greeted by Matt (who I had met the day I got my tattoo) and he was utterly obnoxious both times. He insisted on increasing the size of the tattoos, which would be understandable if it were necessary, but it wasn’t. The second time he wanted to enlarge it to a point where it wouldn’t even fit on the person’s body. He also wanted to charge almost three times as much as they’d had the same tattoos priced at several other shops. He made it very clear that he didn’t want us speaking to any other artist there as well. Needless to say, neither of my friends got their tattoos there.
So I’m giving the shop three stars. If I were rating my experience with Amanda, it would be five. If I were rating my experience with Matt it would be one star. I’m sad that I have to give the shop itself three stars because I know it’s a good shop and a lot of people are pleased with Matt’s work, but personally, I wouldn’t let him touch me, let alone tattoo me.

Yet another amazing tattoo by Matt Cesario! Never ceases to impress me with his quality work. Shop is nice and super clean. Highly recommend!