The Tile Shop

Warning: we haven’t bought anything from these folks, yet.
But the initial experience was such a relief…
…we have several tile projects that are way overdue. In part because the local business we’d used, at our contractors’ insistence, for tile thus far have very restricted hours and fairly limited (it turns out!) selection; the sales folks have been both arrogant and intrusive while simultaneously unavailable.
Ahem.
So — we decided to give this place a shot instead, having finally garnered the courage to go tile shopping again. The expected 4-​hour nightmare was a 30-​min joy: a salesperson (Jamie) approached 5 min in and was attentive — actually listened well — and knowledgeable; the selection available included (sadly) not everything that we wanted, but far more than we expected. We left smiling, almost giddy with relief. Give ‘em a shot.

We have worked with the tile shop to renovate 3 bathrooms now. First the good: the floor staff is courteous, helpful in tile choice, and eager to please without being too pushy in completing a sale. Every time we have been to the store, we have been helped within 5 minutes of wandering the store. Tile selection is also very wide.
Now the bad: being a new store means that there really isn’t much in the way of a «seasoned» veteran tile salesman — so if you do decide to buy at a new Tile Shop (as we have) be sure to come as educated as possible, especially if this is your first experience with tile choice. I say this, because the staff at the Tile Shop needs to learn the ins and outs of lots of the product they sell. They may not know which tile is best for water contact surfaces or which one is going to be less resistant to scratching; they may not know even general installation practices. So… with that said, come with your dimensions and minimally watch a youtube video on tiling before you show up to know which questions to ask.
Now the ugly (and the reason behind the 2 stars) — if you talk to management at the Tile Shop, they will 110% back their «product» under all instances. So, if any of your tile arrives broken (which it does — from experience) be ready to listen as to why that is your fault. Management stated to me that it was my fault that we discovered tile was broken (small hairline cracks) while the contractors were unwrapping the tile from its plastic wrap and that we should have unwrapped and inspected every piece of tile individually in order to keep this from being an emergency. Keep in mind that this ornamental tile was tightly wrapped and small cracks were nearly invisible upon an initial inspection on arrival.
So, in a nutshell, if you choose to do business with the Tile Shop, be ready for a very hands-​on experience. You serve as Quality Assurance for them, because they will send you broken tile (the manager indicated that customer inspection is noted on their bill of sale). So, if you are generally OK with inspecting 3000 lbs + of tile by hand, then by all means.

This business targets the high end market. They only sell tile (and accessories), no other flooring, and their prices seem to range from $ 8/​sqft to $ 20+/sqft. Most of their inventory is in the $ 12-​$ 15 range. Around ¹⁄₃ of their inventory seems to be marble.
Their showroom is fantastic. Every wall is lined with gorgeous displays… kitchens, bathrooms, showers, each created with hand-​laid tile. Their inventory is organized by material and then color, with examples of every tile right in front of you to view.
I was the only customer in the store, and there were about 4 salesmen available to answer questions. They came right over to me as I walked in, in a «salesmany» fashion, but then let me browse and leave as I wanted without interruption.
I’m not the target audience for this store, given the prices, but I’ll probably be back with friends to get ideas, and if I were in their target market, I’d be going there often. They just opened, and I hope they do well… it’s obvious they put a lot of time and money into renovating and setting up the place.