A-A Lock Transbay Security Center

One of the best locksmiths in Santa Clara County is right here. Last year, I went to A-​A Lock at the Alameda location with a worn out entry-​door lock for a boarding house. They had a new lock in stock and made the needed extra keys. When I distributed those keys to all the tenants they were happy, they worked great.
I went back to A-​A Lock yesterday when a new tenant complained about difficulty with unlocking the front door. Sure enough the key was one I had made at a hardware store recently. The original keys that came with lock and all of first batch of A-​A Lock copied keys and new ones yesterday ALL work PERFECTLY.
Being a landlord for room renters has it’s ups and downs but is mostly very rewarding and often fun. You do go through keys though. Between two tenants in the past three years they lost their keys eight times!
I now will never go to a hardware store again for any keys. All of them, (Lowe’s, Orchard, and Home Depot) give you lousy keys that DO NOT fit. I like happy tenants, but one thing I have found that surely puts them in a bad mood is fighting to unlock a door with a crummy key. I get in bad mood when I find bad keys are the cause of ruining a lock.
When I was in A-​A Lock yesterday I saw why they are one of the best lock shops around. There is no wait when there. It is clean and organized. They have more keys on the walls than I have seen in any lock shop. Richard quickly diagnosed my problem to get a key to operate an antique lock’s optional deadbolt. In short order, he looked through thick catalogs, found what was needed, quoted me a fair price, and wrote up an order. Delivery time was just two days.
There was steady stream of customers in the background coming in for keys to be made. Marge’s speed was amazing. A-​A Lock has four or five individual key making machines bolted to their work counter. Each one is presetup for certain types of keys. A-​A Lock keeps these machines tuned to make perfect keys, unlike the ill-​adjusted single cartridge machines at hardware stores. Within 10 minutes Marge took care of the needs of three customers; she made at least a dozens of keys, which included some special text stamping.