Greg M.

Barrad & Trojan Accountancy

Don Trojan and the team at Barrad & Trojan provide top notch service for individuals and businesses. I use them for both my personal tax planning and all my corporate bookkeeping and accounting. The money I pay them each month is gives me great peace of mind. And beyond that Don is a great partner and sounding board for a number of business issues, that I value and wholeheartedly recommend!

Coates Stephen Dds

Dr. Coates is a true professional. He's got a great office, staff, equipment, and most of all he really seems to care. He give a very thorough examination and cleaning. We've been to a lot of dentists before, some we've really liked, but Dr. Coates is the best.

Petropolis

Jessica @ Petropolis was a pleasure to do business with. On my initial call she picked up the phone immidiately, then came over to my house to meet my dog Quincy, and go over the details. She made me feel comfortable with her insurance/bonding certificate and her professional deameanor. She gave us a call while we were gone to let us know how things were going and all and all we were very happy with her service.

We've only had the opportunity to use her once so far, but we wouldn't heasitate to use her again in the future.

Update..We just used Jessica again and we couldn't be happier. She left us a lovely note updating us on our dog's behavior while we were gone and even checked in on Quincy an extra time!

Carolyn Faber - Coldwell Banker

Family and work caused us to relocate from South Pasadena to Long Beach. Carolyn Faber at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage made the process painless. She's a true professional and we wouldn't hesitate to use her again. She's also helped my mother buy and sell several properties, always securing a great price for her.

We're on our third house now, and I can tell you that Carolyn was truly exceptional in all aspects of the transaction from showing us the neighborhood, understanding what we were looking for, filtering out the best opportunities (including the home we eventually bought which hadn't even come on the mls when she showed it to us!), advising us on our investment, closing the deal, referring us to valued advisors (mortgage broker, contractors, etc.)

We'll use her again!

PROS: Experience, practical advice, local knowledge
CONS:

DD's Maintenance

DD was recommended to us by our real estate agent after we moved into our new home in South Pasadena. She's been with us ever since, and we've been very happy since then. We can always count on her to keep the house sparkling, even though our dog always does his best to mess it up. We highly recommend her!

Coldwell Banker

We recently purchased a home in South Pasadena using the services of Cynthia Luczysky and her team. We were seriously impressed the longer we did business with Cynthia. It's a tough buyers market right now with a whole lot of people looking for not a lot of houses. She spent the time with us we needed to understand the area we were moving to, which we didn't know a whole lot about. She guided us through the offer process several times, and finally after an accepted offer she didn't stop there but was EXTREMELY helpful in referring us to all the various folks you need to work with to close a real estate transaction (inspector, architect, contractors, etc.).

A true professional. We'll be using her again in the future.

Quality Inspections

We recently purchased a house in South Pasadena, and our real estate agent, who I also found on Insider Pages, recommended Armando to us. He showed up early to our appointment, spent a solid three hours inspecting our property, walked us through the major issues, promptly emailed us a professionally prepared report with digital photographs, and did it all with professionalism. I couldn't ask more from a home inspector. This is our second house and I will continue to use Armando for all our future purchases.

Jewels By Kurt

If you are not time sensitive, then I recommend Jewels by Kurt -- Michael (Kurt's son, who runs the business) is very trust worthy and honest and does very nice work. He'll custom-make anything you want, as well as buy/sell new or estate jewelry. Wehad our wedding rings made there and we were very happy with the result; however, he isn't very good at either managing deadlines or estimating the amount of time it takes to get a job done. Our rings took several weeks longer than expected, so if youintend to use him, plan ahead.

Jina's Pizza

Better than Papa John's and cheaper -- tell them you want the "large for the price of a medium" (a standing coupon/deal they have) and it's about $9 for a large pizza, delivered!

Medieval Times

Sure, it's absurdly over-priced but it's just so fun. How can you resist eating chicken from the bone and rooting for your knight in the joust? It's a great place to celebrate a birthday or any other occassion whether you're 8 or 38.