Filed under: Retail, Cult of Mac, Retro Mac
A bit of [Big] Apple history: visiting Tekserve
Not to take anything away from the city's other indie Mac shops; we love them dearly, but they often find themselves overshadowed by the Big T. Since my office is roughly equidistant from both the W. 14th Street Apple Store and Tekserve (although, now that I've checked, I realize I'm slightly closer to Mike Volchok's Mike's Tech Shop -- noted for next time!), I decided to go old school today when I picked up my copy of Snow Leopard, and I snapped a few iPhone pics of the store while I was there. Enjoy!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Simon said 1:26AM on 8-29-2009
Where's the old 50's era Coke machine? That was one of may favorite things when I worked at TekServe about 100 years ago - icy cold Coca Cola in those iconic glass bottles, dispensed for 10¢.
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Brian Akaka said 2:35PM on 8-29-2009
The coke machine is still there, at least a year ago. Still costs $0.10. :)
bigrobotdinosaur said 5:20AM on 8-29-2009
dude, Tekserve rules...
service, speed and smiles all at a great price
all hail Tekserve!!
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Pete said 7:41AM on 8-29-2009
Love the place. Good people. I live about 10 blocks away and go there a couple of times a month for my Mac fix.
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Charles said 8:57AM on 8-29-2009
Might make it worth actually going to New York.
Wasn't it in the "Computer Friends" video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNXe_3gVz6I
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FortNinety said 11:29AM on 8-29-2009
I'm sorry, but that place has always made me embarrassed to be an Apple user, and will perhaps continue to do so till the end of time.
First off, the employees there are uniformly some of the rudest people you will find anywhere, just a bunch snobby Willamsburg hipsters who care more about shooting the shit with themselves then helping anyone, and by the time your number is called and it's your turn, they're immediately impatient and condescending. Though shit customer service aside, what I find most appalling is that absolute lack of any real technical knowledge. I can think of at least TWELVE different occasions over the years in which various friends brought their machines to do some repair work, and afterwards their machines were worse off, in which I had to step in and fix the original problem (I myself have a minor background in Mac repair), and in at least one of these instances, it was a Tekserve employee!
If you're a woman, forget about it; my roommate at the time, a teacher, had her iBook die on her, so she brought it to them with hopes that the grades that she had been working could be recovered, otherwise her job would be in jeopardy (they were due the very next Monday). Tekserve quoted an astronomic price, one she could barely afford (since she's a school teacher and all), but was against the wall and agreed, especially when they promised to have it done in a week. Five days passed and when she returned, they had "fixed" something else, but not the original issue, and when she asked why not, the only response was "oops." It should be noted that half the time she was being flagrantly hit on, and the other half they treated her like a five year old. Anyhow, when she asked when the actual repair would be done, another five days was casually quoted, and when she got upset, they immediately gave her an attitude. Essentially "well, that's tough shit, we already started working on your machine, so you can't take it back without us charging you for the original job." The only reason why they fixed it in two days was because I came in huffing and puffing on her behalf, as the boyfriend (thankfully, even though they were submitted late, it was just by two days and she was able to keep her job).
I have another friend who loves them to death because when she got her Mac back, she was happy to discover that all these applications that she has never installed were there. Over time, I began to learn exactly what they do, which related to my roommate's situation: they take Macs and often miss-diagnose problems so they can swap those Apple supplied parts with cheap third party accessories. Tekserve then sells those original parts, either back to Apple or to someone else, I dunno. From what I understand, it's somewhat of a common, dirty tactic. Apologizes if I'm stating some common thing, since I clearly am not involved in the business side of repairing computers. Maybe the Best Buy's Geek Squad does the same thing, I don't know.
Add in the fact that if you go to the back corner of the store, where one can witness the techs doing diagnostics on brought in machines, and its often a pow-wow of various employees sitting around, going through assorted personal files of that Mac's owner (I'm certain that this happens across the board, but to be so out in the open about is just plain retarded), and that place honestly amounts to gigantic pile of bullshit. BTW, how in the hell do they get away with it? Simple; their main clientele are artists and non-computer types, so they fall for whatever nonsense the average Tekserve employee spews out, since the aforementioned groups know nothing about computers (hey, I'm an artist and that's why I started off on Macs, cuz I was complete idiot when it comes to PCs, that's really the case for most of us… or at least used to be…. yes, things has somewhat changed in recent years) and because they're usually there because of an emergency, so they're just desperate for a solution, no matter what.
At least that's how it used to be, when they were the only game in town, but now that there's the Apple Stores, perhaps it's changed. Then again, people are intensely "loyal" to Teckserve, for whatever misguided reasons.
Oh, and for the record, I've told pals of mine who write for both the Village Voice and the New York Press about Tekserve's shady business tactics, and they both said "we're not touching that story with a ten foot pole" because they get so much money for ad revenue.
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Aleks said 12:45PM on 8-30-2009
@FortNinety - I couldn't have said it better myself.
I went into Tekserve to get a 1tb 7200pm internal hard drive recently since Best Buy on 6th avenue was out of stock. Well after waiting 15 minutes in line, the hipster sales-girl just asked me 'did you check out website first to see if it is in stock or what models we have available?' very rudely.
What's even worse is that their website doesn't even show any models, stock or price (http://tinyurl.com/nqqh5a) which I told her so. She just 'sighed' and reluctantly went to her laminated spreadsheet to find out the prices.
She told me a Seagate 1tb internal 7200rpm was $350. That was the final straw in which I just said 'no thanks, that is 3x more than the average price' and I walked away.
I highly recommend STAYING AWAY from Tekserve.
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cDizzle said 2:13PM on 8-29-2009
Wow.
@FortyNine, You are hilarious.
Just FYI, when you see the staffers "shooting the shit," they are most likely talking about the last @FortyNine-esque Luddite that came into the shop with their preconceived notion that the "hipsters" at Tekserve are out to get them.
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commenter said 3:01PM on 8-29-2009
Without going on and on I'll just say that Tekserve can lead to very disappointing service and experiences. Then again I've been avoiding the place for nearly 10 years, but from what I hear its still pretty bad (as noted in above comments.)
Get your mac serviced at Tekserve AT YOUR OWN RISK. Really, the best thing to do is take your mac to the Apple Store and buy upgrades, etc. online on new egg or something.
@cDizzle: It's fortunate you haven't had a bad experience there, but respectfully understand that many New Yorkers have, and likely will.
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mdezz said 8:38PM on 8-29-2009
Ive bought there for years- Im a video editor.designer and have dropped 15k a pop. I can order on oa monday and have a system at my place delivered for free the next day - complete you can beat that. In terms of service if you have a relationship with one of the reps there - they service you quite well
mdezz
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Christ G. said 9:32PM on 8-29-2009
Not to start a flame war but...
@FortyNine: You suck. People like you are the reason Tekserve employees are so hostile.
@Aleks: $350 included installation and the cloning of your data from an old drive to the new. Best Buy would never do that for you. I know, coz I shelled out the money to have Tekserve do it, and when after 10 months the drive fried, they replaced it warranty. Oh, and they transferred my info from my backup gratis.
@commenter: Good luck @ the Apple Store when your Mac goes out of warranty, or when they find one piece of 3rd party newegg RAM and deny you service.
In the end, libel is still a crime, Matthew Hawkins. Stick to cartoons, not blog comments, and stay out of my favorite Mac shop!!
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tsimcha said 11:07PM on 8-29-2009
I went into tekserve some years ago with an iMac g5, with a faulty power supply (i know know this was a regular problem with that model). They managed to wipe my hard drive and offered to restore the very large hard drive at a very high price per gigabyte.
Nice scam.
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pete said 11:04PM on 8-29-2009
Many years ago, I had brought my old ibook G3 into Tekserve for repair. They were very rude to me when I brought it into service. I thought to myself, that's fine, whatever, as long as I get my machine back fixed I could live with crap customer service.
After about TEN(!) days in the shop, they gave it back to me claiming they fixed the issue. However, that night, the issue returned. It was not fixed. AND they completely scratched up the shell of the machine during the attempt.
So, fed up, I immediately called Apple and got my machine fully repaired in three days. And that's three days shipping it to and from their repair center. I wanted to support local business and I thought by going local I would save time over sending it to Apple, but boy, I was completely wrong.
I was so angry over how I was treated, I actually sent a letter to Apple telling them about my poor experience. I have never stepped foot into Tekserve since then and I probably never would unless I was completely desperate. I would recommend others do the same.
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Sean said 11:06PM on 8-29-2009
Good luck with the dying dinosaur that is tekserve. Yes, the service is sub par, the staff is undereducated and the prices are high - how else could they stay in business with 3 other mac stores in the area.
I'm sure all you tekserve fanboys are upset because you happen to model yourself after the williamsburg hipster and take offense to being called out for your carabiner keychain and deep-v rims. Get over it, the place will be gone in 5 years max.
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some dude said 11:45AM on 8-30-2009
Most people I know who go to Tekserve do so because Apple weasels out of their responsibility to fix their poor-quality hardware...like the aforementioned Newegg RAM. (Seriously, they'll refuse to fix a HARDWARE problem when you're not using overpriced "Apple" RAM.) Tekserve is usually a bit more forgiving.
The store itself isn't terribly pleasant, however. Their fortè is not customer service, to say the least. Who wants to take a ticket and stand around for twenty minutes just to buy an iPhone case? The fact that the ENTIRE place operates on the whole meat counter ticket-taking system makes for a very poor customer experience. That system may work for repairs, but not for general shopping.
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