Willy-Sono

I've only been writing about food recently. That seems odd, and yet unsurprising. There's a reason I look like this.

I made a trip to the nearest Williams-Sonoma recently (in Bellevue!). I had to pick up a couple specialty kitchen gadgets, so Williams-Sonoma was the obvious choice. Why is it the obvious choice? Let me share a little experience of ours...

Ames had a cookie press. It was a gift 4 or 5 years ago; the press was from Williams-Sonoma. So we took it out, and realized it wasn't working. There was a problem with the spring in it, so there was no tension on the plunger. As a result, it was totally worthless.

Ames called Willy-Sono, and they told her to bring it in. So in we go, taking a four-year-old defunct cookie press and no receipt.

"Yep, that's one of ours," the sales guy says. He looks it up in the book and tells us they don't carry it any more, but the sale price on it was $35. He gives Ames $35 store credit.

Then he shows us the model that replaced Ames' defunct press, explains why it's better and tells us it cost in the neighbourhood of $10 more. But of course, he assures us, it's a store credit so we can use it on anything.

If we had brought in a receipt, he tells us, he could have given us a refund.

That's for a four-year-old cookie press that's stopped working, with no receipt.


Where am I going to spend my kitchen budget from now on?


So I bought a pizza stone and a french bread pan this week. Are they a little spendy? Absolutely! But they both include a slip that tells me to take them back at any time if I decide I don't like them. I didn't pay extra for the quality (although they're obviously of superior quality to other offerings I've both purchased and researched). I paid extra so I can deal with people who treat me like I matter.

I'm sold.