Stone Specialties of Tampa Bay, Inc.

My dad had granite installed in his kitchen several years ago by Stone Specialties of Tampa Bay. After breaking a piece off at the sink seam, my dad demanded they cut a new piece. Several days later, they brought a thicker, non- matching replacement piece and tapered it in on the bottom to match up in thickness. It still is very noticable, and I did not care much for them after that. About one year ago, however, my friend used them for his kitchen. They really hadn't gotten any better. In fact, there were seven issues with this job including chipped edgwork, a used/ scratched sink, a broken cabinet (which was new), a large seem (which seperated months later), uneven margins w/ the cabinetry, and an "accidental" overcharge for this aweful job. They sent the original installer back out to fix most of the issues and gave my friend a discount for the used sink, but he was still not happy and just wanted their mess out of his kitchen and his money back in his pocket. I guess when you spend thousands of dollars a month on advertising, you don't have to do a good job, because if they put either of the two jobs I've seen in their ad, they would be ruined. There is a good granite company also north on Gunn Hwy. that does not rely so much on advertising, but more so on word of mouth and repeat customers. more

I am a licensed contractor working in the bay area for over 10 years now. Stone specialties has done dozens of jobs for my clients and me, including my own mother. Everyone is always floored with the quality and professionalism. They are the only granite company I know I can trust to get the job done right, even when I'm not there! Keep up the good work Gary, Travis, and associates! more

It would have been much better to be able to highly recommend this business to family and friends, but as it turned out we are not able to do that. We waited a while before writing this review just to have a cool off period, but as you will read there is not many positive things to say. We based our decision on the ratings on this website, Angie's list and the Better Business Bureau. We chose Stone Specialties after getting estimates from 2 other reputable companies who were also highly rated, not really based on their price (their price was comparable to the others) but based on a previous pleasant small dealing that we had with them where they cut a granite top for a bookcase for us. Based on that, we chose them over the others. As it turned out it was a very big mistake... This project was a kitchen and bath remodeling for a rental property at the beach. We were told that they worked Pinellas county and that they had the best experienced cabinet installers, tile installers, electricians, drywall installers, etc. We were told that these people had worked for the company for many years. We were promised that the project would take approximately two weeks, at most 3 weeks allowing for unexpected things. We had renters coming at the beginning of September and hoped to be able to rent during the month of August once the project was completed. It should have been completed in July. As it turned out there was still things pending when our September renters came in and we lost rental income for the entire month of August. At first we were sold a cabinet in a color that we later found out did not exist. We found out when we visited the Armstrong cabinet location. By then we had tile picked out to match, etc. but we took it as human error and selected another door in another color and went looking for other tiles, etc. The next thing that happened once the remodeling started was that we got red-tagged by the city inspector. They did not pull permits as they should have. There was also questions about proper licensing etc. Along with that came lots of unneccesary running around and time lost at work for us. Did we ask if they had pulled permits? No, we didn't... We really didn't know what needed to be done, but they should have. We thought that a reputable company would do what needed to be done. We trusted them and we were wrong... more

I don't normally write bad reviews. I prefer to leave the flaming to others. However, since I relied upon the ratings on this website as a factor in selecting Stone Specialties over its competitors, I thought it was fair to provide our own rating. The lead up to installation had its problems. Their saw machine had broken and getting an answer about an installation date was a function of who you talked to at the company. Installation took from 11:30 to 6: 30 with no installer breaks. I think the installers just wanted to get out of there. After the dust settled, and we had a chance to look at the installation, we noticed that the seams were poorly done and that the granite colors did not match from piece to piece. A neighbor stopped by the next day and without prompting noted that the seams were poor. The salesperson visited and agreed that the seams were poor and made some rather strong commitments to fix the installation. It took a week after inspection to hear back from Stone Specialties. As a matter of fact, Stone Specialties never did return that set of phone calls- one day, the installers called and said they were on the way. In spite of a commitment from Stone Specialties to send out his fix-it specialists, Stone Specialties sent the original installers back out- they did what they could, but it is still a poor installation. As for the color differences, we did specify in the contract that we wanted to see and select the slabs before cutting. The first visit, we rejected the slabs. A few days later, Stone Specialties got in some more stone. We looked at one slab, which was exactly what we wanted. The salesperson said the other two, which we could not see because they were laid against each other were "just like the first one". When I expressed my doubts since we could not see the finished faces, he assured me, that he would personally see that the stones matched before cutting. I believed him, he didn’t and they don’t. My advice to prospective Stone Specialties customers: Look at each and every stone slab fully before agreeing to use the slab. Make Stone Specialties move the slabs so you can see the finished side of both slabs side by side and have them mark your slabs in your presence. Do NOT, as we did, give Stone Specialties 50% down. You lose any leverage and what going concern needs 50% up front. I only agreed to that because this site and the BBB had good things to say about Stone Specialties. In summary, I hate having to say bad things about a company, but this review site needs some balance, unless I am the only person in Stone Specialties history that has ever had this level of service and product and I doubt that. I am like the vast majority of other consumers. I would rather have a quality installation that I and the vendor could point to with pride than to have a reason to write bad reviews on websites. Pros: Cheap Cons: Service, Installation, Follow Up more

I shopped around quite a bit before finding Travis at Stone Specialties. It was just such a pleasure to get the personalized service that I was looking for. We had our kitchen counter done with granite, and I'm still amazed at how beautiful it came out. Travis was such a great help, and every step of the way the process and installation went just as he promised. It is just so rare to find such service these days, and I have, and will always continue to recommend Stone Specialties to my friends. Pros: Great Prices, Personalized care Cons: None more