Felecia W.
Will never seek out a chain/corporate shop again.
We were really excited about this shop and opportunity but were EXTREMELY disappointed by the end and will never seek out a chain/corporate shop again. It was the most unpersonal and unprofessional situation for a shop chain that claims things such as "is renowned for its exceptional service, skilled artists, and inviting atmosphere". This wasn't some basic/standard tattoo for us, this was an entire sleeve piece that has been thought about for years, something that I've saved $$ to treat my husband with for quite some time. This was a piece that we've been looking for an artist whose excited about doing it, someone who could put their art skills to work to make something truly amazing for my husband to wear for the rest of his life. All we found at Cleopatra was a shop who didn't care and artists who just slap a bumper sticker on someone with no passion behind it. I scheduled a consult for my husband who has been trying to get a sleeve done for quite some time but we haven't found an artist that was a good fit. When we arrived at the shop, it was a bit chaotic but Passion sat down with us and a tablet and we spent a good amount of time adding the images wanted, arranging them and working up the design. She talked about how the shops are all over the world and if they had an artist over seas that was the best fit for the piece, they'd even fly them in to do the work and noted that she brought artists up from Miami often. Once we were done she quoted us, we paid the $200 deposit and scheduled the appt. We were never told who the artist was so about 2 weeks out from the appointment I started reaching out to see if I could at least check out the artists work who'd be doing the sleeve. The shop gave me the IG handle of the artist (who was one of the artists in the shop at our consult, not someone "brought in") we were able to see some of his work but a lot of what was posted was older work and my husband was wanting to speak to him and try to get a feel for how the piece was coming together, etc. The artist never got back to us so my husband reached out via Facebook to the shop, whoever the social media person is was able to contact the shop and they said my husband could come down Thursday (2 days before the appt) and meet the artist as well as see the outline they had put together. When my husband arrived, the artist was not there and not only was there no outline but the mock up design that we had worked on with Passion originally, was nowhere to be found. She tried to rush and throw something together on the tablet for him but by this point, he was so frustrated with the entire situation that he just left and canceled the appointment, forfeiting the deposit, which in my experience goes towards the artist putting time in on your design, which clearly never happened. We are bummed that we're out the $$ and out the time that we could've been looking for another artist and shop that wouldn't treat us like this. If you're looking for something generic, the artists here do really good work. But if you're looking for something custom, looking for a shop that you would go back to for multiple pieces, stay as far way from Cleopatra as you can.