George L Throop

Very helpful staff, especially the boss, George Throop III. I enjoy giving business to family run businesses, because they seem to care more. My family’s business has only been around since 1956, but this place has been around 90 years. From grandfather to son, and then grandson. If you are in need of stone, brick, gravel and other ground coverings, this is your place. They will gladly help you whether your project is big or small. They even have night crews at times delivering materials to work on freeway projects in the middle of the night. George III told me that they did a project for a horse riding arena requiring 31 truck loads. The owner of the riding arena had a specialist fly in from the Netherlands (Holland) to approve the sand used in the arena. My project only requires one truck load and they will deliver to my house. I didnt feel like I was treated any differently just because my project was small. One time George III didn’t have the particular stone that I needed, so he kindly sent me to a competitor and made a hand drawn map so I wouldn’t get lost. George III is the go-​to guy ! If you want to find him, it’s not hard because he looks to be 6′ 7″.

Very nice place for all building or construction materials. Adam Throop is very helpful and super nice. He makes you feel like home when you go to his place.

Super friendly and helpful spot. Found what I needed and got out in no time with LOTS of helpful service. A+!

I purchase a lot of building materials. This is my least favorite place. Anything out of the ordinary and they are completely helpless. However, they are not making an effort either:
I wanted to order a barn-​door rail by Stanley. Throope is a vendor, but the order person did not want to get the catalogue («we don’t have it») till me insisting made him finely get it. Still he wasn’t able to place the order which I had to learn after 4 or 5 calls later that day (I had the feeling he made me call him, ’cause he didn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know how to handle the catalogue and/​or special orders). Very poor.
Also, I find the prices being about 25%-30% higher than other places.

these mexicans have a lot of building materials, friendly service and you dont even have to speak spanish

I feel so silly for all the time I’ve spent living in Pasadena, yet traipsing to Home Depot every time I need to make repairs around the house. Throop Co. is a gem. It’s the kind of place that I wish existed in every town.
Case in point: the little widget in my toilet that keeps the water in the tank until you flush was screwed up. I pulled it out, wrote down the model of the toilet, and then was just about to head to Home Despot when I thought «I’ll try Throop first.» One star is for me finding the toilet hardware within seconds of walking in the door, and it all being organised and in one place; two more stars for George himself popping out of a back room and helping me look for just the right part; the fourth star is for when, not finding an exact match, he personally called up the supplier to find out what part I should be using.
Prices are great. Service is fantastic. While I was there, in fact, I watched the other guys around the counter be AMAZINGLY polite and respectful to an difficult customer, and send her out the door happy. So the 5^th star is for that.
They almost lost a star for not having everything. They have almost everything, but it’s a little place, and if what you want is really weird, they aren’t gonna have it. But I bet they’d figure out where to get it, and order it for you, or at the very least send you somewhere that has it. Coz they’re that cool.

It’s an open air building, hardware store. They’ve got carpenter’s on-​site to cut, measure, pour, whatever the hell you need for your project.
You have to go into the shop and tell the clerk what you want, after that, he prints out the work order and you take it to one of the fellas slicing up planks.
I had these guys make me a «clay board», we used these boards in school to lay down blocks of WED clay, and we would slice the clay up into perfect slabs to build «walls» for making molds, layering, etc… Since I didn’t get a chance to jack the one from school, I remembered the measurements/​dimensions and came over to these guys to get it done.
I paid like 8 $ or some shit. The prices are very reasonable.
It gets a neutral 3, because I don’t come here too often and parking can be a bitch, traffic on the Fair Oaks Ave side can suck if a giant truck/​cement truck has to pull in or pull out.
Other than that, they’re great for custom gigs, and if you have a thing against corporate giants.