Elise M.
Yelp
I reflected for several days before posting this, as I wanted to make sure that the review was truly serving as feedback that might allow the business to improve, and not as something coming from a place of spite. Upon reflection, I decided that I want to share what happened to me so that the owner(s) of Fragrant Isle might read this and improve.
Upon walking up to Fragrant Isle, I was impressed. The building is new, clean, and looks like it was extremely expensive to build. It looks like an upscale barn and is surrounded by pretty lavender fields. Walking in, you're greeted with the amazing smell of fresh lavender amid a clean and well organized shop. There's also a cafe in the back of the room. I think you can get lavender-themed treats and coffee. It looked very nice.
In fact, my husband was so impressed that he leaned over to me and whispered, "Pick something out to buy...we have to support this awesome place." As I eagerly browsed for my gift among their nice selection of lavender home and bath products, my husband wandered over to the back part of the store near the bathrooms. He beckoned to me to follow so he could show me a staircase that appeared to lead up to another area. There was a painting hanging on the landing and no signage or other sort of notice to indicate that it wasn't part of the public area of the store.
We had no sooner started to ascend the stair case to what we honestly thought was more of the store, when a shrill voice loudly yelled at us that the area was not public. The woman attached to the voice came rushing over and basically reamed us out by shouting that the area was PRIVATE (emphasis hers), not public. Then she shouted, accusingly, that she thought she saw us trying to go up there before too.
She was loud and rude, embarrassed us in front of the store, and made false accusations that we were up to some sort of nefarious behavior to boot. It was extremely off-putting and instead of buying stuff like we planned, we just left. It was upsetting enough that I thought about it for several hours afterwards, but didn't let it ruin my day.
All in all, it was a very disappointing experience, but there's another lavender store on Washington Island anyway. We went there instead and I got some nice lavender-scented soap.