New Grace Nails in West Hartford, CT

First time here today and overall left happy. Made appointment for regular manicure and dipping powder manicure for us. Inside is not too large but clean and fairly updated. Noticed lots of returning customers since owner asked or knew what usuals they wanted.

Price: reasonable all things considered being in blue back and all. There are cheaper places nearby as well. Here, today December 2023, $15 for manicure (+$5 extras to remove my gel) . $35 for gel manicure. Regular pedicure is $36. My friend got dipping which was $49.

Location: blue back very convenient if you live in the area, that said, street or public parking both cost money Monday to Saturday. Don't want to pay, come on a Sunday. Great location if you're having a nail date with a friend, makes grabbing a meal afterwards in the area easy since it's always nice to stroll around blue back.

Service/quality: friendly owner who communicated well, place had a youthful vibe since most nail techs were young. Quick massage for manicure, gave us a free 10 min massage card for next time along with a returning 10 times card. They also have membership for $30/year that comes with some discount benefits.

Recommend booking an appointment since walk in could be tough, especially popular times in the day and weekends. The space isn't huge so there's only so many people they can take at one time.

So I went here on 2 occasions:
1st time- I went to get a pedicure which I did like it, the lady took her time doing it. I also had acrylic nails which I wanted to remove. I called about 2hrs to schedule an appointment and ask for the prices as it was my 1st time visiting the shop $35 pedi, $20 soak off (don't quote me on the soak off price)

When it was time to remove the nails Hana, who did my pedicure as well, was about to yank the acrylic nails with the metro card seen tucked in the basket.

She started on my pinky tried the ring finger and asked if it was hurting which I replied "YES, aren't you going to soak them?"
if I wanted to yank my nails and damage my nail bed I'd do so at home, for free and not pay $20 to have them yanked with a metro card (the audacity)
Anyway, after I said it hurts, she proceeded to tell me how much it was to have the nails soaked off, and if I was ok with the price, I replied "YES"
She then proceed to file my nails, and remove it the correct way.
It wasn't the best nail soak off I ever gotten, but it is what it is

2nd time
I called to schedule a pedicure, upon arrival I wasn't greeted, because they were busy chatting amongst themselves anyway
I sat down and got my pedicure done by Chris, he was so nice, gentle and was a great experience
I recommend that you ask for Chris when getting your pedi.
Chris gets 2.5
Hana gets .5
Customer service needs to be improved over all, greet your customers, acknowledge them and whatnot
Place looks clean

So unprofessional.  I called day of to make an appointment the day of, I came in, sat down at the chair, pedicure started , then the same guy who made my apt on the phone came over and said they were over booked and I had to leave.  He asked if I could come back in an hour.  No, I'm not coming back in an hour, nor ever again.  There are too many nail salons in the area to deal with this, read the other reviews below...

great mani, awesome pedi. good price. they were also very nice and gave a killer massage.

I have been a client at this salon for almost 10 years.

Today I walked in for a regular manicure.  Sunny, my favorite there, was available so she started my manicure.   I hadn't been there in a while.  I wanted to schedule a regular manicure for next couple weeks then a mani/pedi for a few weeks out.  Owner Jason said his policy is that REGULAR manicures only  can NOT be scheduled.  Walk in only. This was all while Sunny was doing my manicure .  I questioned his policy and said it is difficult to just do walk in because many times they are busy and can not accommodate and I really wanted to make an appt.  He got very rude at this point. I said then I would no longer be a customer going forward.  In the middle of my manicure service with Sunny he made her stop and told me to go.  I was near tears at this point and left.   I am so very upset about this.  As I said been going there a long while.