Excel Granite

We hired this company to install granite in a kitchen of our current house flip. The experience picking out the granite was wonderful — the staff person working, went out of her way to get what I wanted. Template went fine. Delivery? Well that was another story! I was given a window of time for them to show up. I called to followup where they were and was told they were stuck in traffic. They arrived an hour late — no phone call. They were in a rush to get in and out as they were late. In the process of installing the heavy piece of granite, they damaged my new corner bead and dry wall that was installed. I called to try to work out a deal with them for compensation, and was told that they are not liable and I signed a waiver. I found out I was dealing with the owner, a female, and she was arguing and yelling at me, rude, rude she was and so very unprofessional. I am no longer going to use them for my residential redevelopment business. STAY AWAY FROM THEM! THEY DO NOT DESERVE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY AND BUSINESS AND YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE TREATED LIKE YOUR BUSINESS DOES NOT MATTER! DON’T LINE THEIR POCKETS WITH GREEN!

Holy shit, these guys have the most 1-​star reviews I ever saw, seems everyone had a bad experience with them. I have to say, I do not share that view.
This is the 3^rd time I have used them for a kitchens. They offer granite at the $ 30, $ 35, and $ 40 levels, which is great. They templated my kitchen within 2 days, the guy actually made a wooden mold of the counter.
Granite was installed this morning, 4 days after they templated it. They arrived an hour early, got the granite into the apartment quickly, did not damage any walls or cabinets. Installation took about an hour. They drilled 3 extra holes for me at no charge.
They are not the best at answering the phone or returning calls, that’s true. And yeah they are not top end customer service or anything. But you’re paying $ 30/​ft so what do you want?

Note: This company writes up their own reviews. We are an actual couple who purchased from them.
A friend of ours recommended Excel Granite because of price, and ONLY price. He owns and operates his own flipping business in Boston and uses Excel. He warned us that the customer service is extremely poor and to just take it with a grain of salt, but in the end they do good work for the price. He was right. Knowing this ahead of time made the process fine. The price of the granite could not be beat and the installation was good. Nothing was damaged and the granite was great quality. My fiancé is pretty handy and observed the installers — they were actually very friendly and gave him a tutorial on installing and proper care of granite.
If you need granite at a good price, this company does good work but don’t expect a royal carpet treatment. They do not call you back and they may cancel their installation appointment same-​day. But it saved us thousands, which was worth the extra fuss.

STAY FAR, FAR AWAY.
I usually try to use Unilocal to leave positive reviews, not negative ones, but my recent experience with Excel Granite was so awful that I feel the need to warn people about it. I’m including specific details about the timeline of the project to avoid confusion and show in detail how little regard this business has for its customers.
I have a small kitchen, and at first, Excel seemed like a great option — I live just down the street, and the price was right. I picked out a few possible slabs and left my dimensions with Marianna (who seems to be the main office contact) on a Tuesday, April 30; she promised to call me the next day. As you might suspect, this didn’t happen. I left a message on Thursday, May 2 that went ignored; it wasn’t until Friday afternoon that I managed to catch her when she was in the office. I was starting to suspect that this could go south quickly, but the price was so much lower than I’d expected, and I dropped by the shop to confirm that I’d like to go forward. Marianna informed me that I’d need to pay 50% of the estimate up-​front, which seemed reasonable. I told her that I already had a topmount sink purchased, and she just nodded.
The following Monday, May 6, I was waiting outside Excel at 9:00 a.m. with my check, and I kept waiting until 9:30, at which point I couldn’t sit around any longer and left for work. I left another message, pointedly asking when they’re open (their hours are supposedly M-​F 9 – 5) because I had some money for them and didn’t they want to take it? I eventually got a call back on Wednesday, May 8, with no apology for opening at least half an hour late with no notice, letting me know that the installer would be by in the late afternoon on Monday, May 13. I took the day off from work so I’d be around.
When the installer showed up at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, May 13 — with no notice whatsoever — I don’t think I’ve ever been more uncomfortable in my home. He smelled like beer — and while beer is great, I don’t expect to someone to reek of it before 11 a.m. on a weekday — and spent more time asking me about my name and my marital status than he spent measuring my kitchen. PROTIP: Asking female customers things like, «Oh, how’d you get that last name?» and «Why isn’t your husband around?» is EXTREMELY CREEPY. He then tried to sell me an undermount sink, and took my topmount sink with him when I finally managed to hustle him out of the house as fast as possible. At this point, I started researching other contractors because the idea of letting this dude into my house again made my skin crawl.
On Thursday, May 16, I got a phone call from Marianna, who wanted to know why on earth I’d bought a topmount sink when undermounts were much better. She told me that Excel doesn’t install topmount sinks because they cut those on-​site and — get this — they had «A BAD ACCIDENT» a few years ago. At this point, I’ve got J. Walter Weatherman from Arrested Development flashing through my head, and when I asked why a topmount sink has to be cut on-​site, Marianna had no answer for me. «That’s just the way we do it» is rarely an acceptable answer for grown human adults, and especially not for someone ostensibly representing a business. I kept pressing — at this point, I’d put in enough time that I was going to see this thing to the bitter end — and she said she’d talk to the owner about it.
On Saturday, May 18, I got a call back from Marianna — the owner said no, they couldn’t do my countertop with the topmount sink, because it was going to be unsafe. I could come by and pick up my deposit check and what is now apparently a rabid gun-​toting dangerous sink whenever I wanted, but not right away because my sink was at the warehouse in Everett so, you know, not really whenever I wanted.
On Monday, May 20, I waited until 11 a.m. to go to Excel to get my things. My sink and check were sitting next to Marianna’s desk; she was on the phone when I came in, and she just pointed to my materials. Yes, that’s right, she didn’t greet me, excuse herself for being on the phone, or help me with anything. It took a lot of willpower not to grab the phone from her and tell the person on the other end to run far, far away.
I’m working with another, significantly more reputable granite fabricator now, and when I asked if they could work with my topmount sink or if it had to be cut on-​site, they looked at me like I’d grown another head and that head was speaking Pig Latin. As I suspected, Excel had BS’d me – of course the holes for topmount sinks can, and SHOULD, be cut in the shop!
So we’ve got an office manager who can’t show up on time or return phone calls, a laborer who decided to tie one on before getting down to work on Monday morning, another laborer who had a mysterious «accident» while installing a sink, and an owner who knows nothing about countertop installation.
Again, STAY AWAY.

Looking for some granite for my kitchen. I contacted both Excel Granite and Granite-​Shop in Everett, MA. It turns out they are owned by the same people.
The prices are very inexpensive, but that’s the only thing positive I can say. Customer service was horrible. They are very difficult to get on the phone. I left numerous voicemail messages and my calls were never returned. They were suppose to come out to my house to check what granite I had and they no-​showed. They never called me. I had to call them only to be to be told «sorry, xxx can’t make it today».
I can say the reason I joined Unilocal was because of them. I’d add more to my review but I don’t want them knowing who I am considering they have my contact info.

BUYER BEWARE
Although Excel Granite’s prices look enticing don’t be fooled! We had met with Jay (who now no longer works there) back in November and thought we had hit the jackpot with this company. We had read many negative reviews but thought from our experience with Jay that it would never happen to us. Well… we were wrong. I took a day off work to have our template done before the holiday’s and no one showed up. No call, nothing. I tried to call them and got no answer. For the past 12 days they have been closed and just reopened today. I spoke with Jay’s replacement this morning and he said he would try to send someone over to do the template. Two men came, (who did not in any way ease my skepticism about this company), and did a «template» of our kitchen. After watching this and having an extremely bad feeling about the work we were paying for, my husband and I decided to cancel or work with Excel Granite. We found the people who work for Excel to be very unprofessional and did not want to risk any further damages.
We are very happy with our decision and found a more reputable granite company to install our granite for the same price Excel was charging us.

Worst business! I purchased granite and they punctured a hole in my wall while delivering the granite, broke the cabinet where the dishwasher is housed at, did not seal the granite, and the back splash was the wrong legnth. It has been a month and they will not return my calls at all. You may think you are getting a good deal but you are just getting what you paid for! garbage!!!