John Boos Factory Showroom & Outlet, Illinois, United States

3Allen21096 5:00 PM Aug 29, 2019

Nothing really special
We were staying nearby and when we ran out of things to do, we decided to check out the John Boos Factory Showroom & Outlet. They have butcher blocks, cutting boards and other food-service products. Though the staff was pleasant, we did not find anything that caught our attention. They did seem to have good prices, however.

1eats4me 5:00 PM Jun 3, 2019

After wasting time and money I did research
I was returning from a trip and went out of my way to visit the John Boos & Co. factory showroom in Effingham, IL. They had an end grain cherry chopping block advertised on their factory outlet website as a Monthly Deal for December. I called a few days before the end of the month to see if they would still offer their special rate as it was the end of the year and though I could drive a little longer to make it before the end of the month, asked if it would be acceptable to come first thing in the morning on the first day of the year that they were open. They told me that it was fine, that they had plenty and even had some in their seconds bin. So I stayed in a hotel in Effingham and showed up early on the first day they opened for the year. But the Special Deal they had had advertised was nowhere to be found. That is when I was told that they hadn't had them for the last few weeks. She did, however, offer to sell me a smaller version for full price. I found it particularly disturbing when they kept this on their website until at least January 10th, which according to their sales person, was over 3 weeks after they no longer had them available. Of course I keep such documentation such as records of my calls and screenshots. And Google timeline verifies where I have been and when. John Boos & Co has a reputation of being a high end cutting board and chopping block company. But after this experience I began to research alternatives. America's Test Kitchen a PBS kitchen equipment testing and recipe TV show did research testing many boards and its findings are available in YouTube. It included a John Boos board in its testing and its research pointed to a better and cheaper alternative. And Amazon reviews has plenty of people complaining that these expensive boards warp and split, a point made by America's Test Kitchen, and Amazon reviewers were unhappy when John Boos & Co would not replace the board. One reviewer called his expensive firewood. But high end cutting board manufacturer, Cotton and Dust of West Texas guarantees their boards for life. And the look so much better. And I note one Yelp reviewer raved that their boards are featured on Top Chef and other reality cooking shows. Do you not know that companies can pay to have their products featured? Very effective marketing, but it's just overpriced wood. I prefer actual testing. I was so angry at having incurred a hotel bill and being subjected to what I perceived as a Bait and Switch, I wrote to corporate to tell them of my experience and ask what they would do to see that it didn't happen to anyone else.. Corporate apparently didn't want to be bothered and passed it off to their Sales Operations Manager, Carrie, who called me and not only mischaracterized the complaint in my letter, but informed me there was no future plan to assure this experience would not happen again. It was simply a mistake. It was if she didn't take the time to read my letter. Were it not for Ms. Millers mishandling of my complaint, I would not have written this review. I intend to file a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General and would be interested to learn if others had had a similar experience.