Red Robin Masonry

John, Dave and their team were a dream. John was eager to work with us to develop a plan that fell within our budget, focusing on key priority areas and offering advice for long-term plans around other sections of our exterior. Red Robin's communication was stellar—they contacted us well in advance of the scheduled date and were careful to update us when plans changed due to inclement weather. The two masons who worked on our house were lovely—they were punctual, courteous, efficient, and assiduous about cleaning the work site (and very kind to our barking dogs!). When the team discovered that an ant infestation and water damage had eroded the bricks behind our original parging to the point where they were reduced to dust, John readily agreed to rebuild that wall—and only charged us for materials. And when a phone cable was inadvertently sliced during the tuck-pointing process, Dave immediately volunteered to cover any repair costs, going so far as to insist that we hold back payment until we knew how much we'd have to pay out of pocket. Red Robin's work is fantastic—but more importantly, they are nothing short of wonderful to deal with. I can't recommend them more.

I've been lucky having worked with several different good contractors for renovations to my house, but Dave and his crew were totally amazing. Our chimney had extensive water and winter damage that required a total rebuild. Joe is an amazing craftsman and despite encountering a few "problems", did a top quality job. We especially appreciated Dave's constant communication and customer follow up through out the rebuild to ensure we were satisfied with how it was proceeding and when it was done. I would most definitely recommend Red Robin for any brick or masonry work. You will not be disappointed.

We had our chimney rebuilt by Red Robin and were very satisfied with the quality of the work. The brick used was matched to the existing brick, so if you didn't know you could not tell the difference. The work was finished in one day, luckily the weather cooperated to allow this. The team leader was Joe who was very professional and he kept the work on track. They worked together very well, were pleasant and left the site in perfect condition. The pricing was very reasonable, the work wa excellent and I wouldn't hesitate to use Red Robin again. I highly recommend them. Also, the parging at the bottom of the garage was complimentary. You can't beat that! I gave this company a rating of 10 and would definitely recommend them to friends and family!

Contacted Dave to provide estimate on repairing our chimney due to water damage in 2011. They had to remove 14 rows of brick as well as replaced some damaged brick at the base of the window.

I liked their professionalism with the way they dealt with things. Their pricing was very reasonable and they were able to match the red brick exactly (this was brick used in the 1980s).

They did miss one brick at the base of one of the windows (owner thought it was done). It took them 2 weeks for one of their staff to come by to fix it but they did apologize for the delay and missed brick and were communicative throughout the delay. Great customer service.

We hired Red Robin to demolish existing concrete stairs to a basement apartment and cinderblock walls that were also supporting a large concrete slab/porch above the walkout. The old walls were buckling and causing the porch to sink. The plan was to cut back the slab as close to the house as possible and redo the walls and stairs. We also have a tenant living in the basement who is, luckily, easy going and understanding, and we told Red Robin that he would need to access to his apartment at the end of their workdays. We were told this would be around a 2 week project but it ran into 4 weeks overall.

We really wanted to like these guys and contacted them because of all the great reviews. John came out and was easy to talk to and offered more insight into the job than other estimators we had contacted, so we felt good about selecting them. They weren't the cheapest quote we got but they were competitive. There were at least 6, maybe more, different guys who came out to do the work over the course of the month and they were all nice and easy to talk to when approached.

However, there were a few disappointing parts of the job. It took longer than it should have for a few reasons. The second day on the job, the two guys who were removing the stairs were only here for 3 hours because they started late due to a course they were scheduled to take. The third day only one guy was here to finish the majority of the stairs. This meant he was the single guy breaking up large concrete stairs, shovelling out dirt and concrete pieces, wheelbarreling it to his truck, and one by one lifting individual pieces that must have been 100lbs each into the truck. This ended up being typical - only one guy worked most days during the job which surprised us because it was obvious the guys could have used a helper for what they were doing. It also would have made the project go faster.

The first week was jarring because it involved digging out lots of wet dirt, which they just piled in various locations directly on our interlock patio, leaving a huge mess. We had a waterproofing contractor come out a few years ago who obviously dealt with much more mud and was able to leave our backyard in great shape by laying out tarps that they put the mud on. I really don't understand why that wasn't part of what these guys did originally, but it wasn't until we mentioned it that they came the next day with tarps to clean it up.

Although they told us we didn’t need to be around while they worked, we felt like we needed to since the different guys that came didn't seem to be aware of the extent of the job and had to be reminded that we had a tenant so temporary stairs (that we provided) were put in place. We had to delay a trip by a night so we could meet with Mike to talk about a change in the job, which resulted in them requoting it (twice), but turned out the footings they thought they had found didn't exist so we went back to the original quote anyway.

Some other ‘minor' issues included that the new walls they built coming off our house are not straight, so the walkout and stairs angle to the left, and although they told us the blocks would be filled with cement, not every block was. I’m not sure if we were supposed to know this, but considering we told them we were going to anchor our main floor stairs to the top of the wall, I’m surprised they weren’t filled because it doesn’t leave us much to anchor to if they’re hollow. Considering these were brand new walls, they really should have been straight and if cost was a factor in filling the blocks, they should have raised it with us. We were also told they were going to come with a pressure washer to clean up the interlock but I'm not sure if that happened. Cement was also splattered on the screen/storm door. We were told that work would start between 8-830pm each day but most days it wasn't until 9 or later. Two Sundays they started loud work at 7-730am (drill + saws) and we felt bad for our neighbours. We felt a few times like we were being told one thing only to have something different happen.

The most disappointing part however, is that we weren't consulted about the construction of the new stairs. Once I saw that one of the workers was planning on putting in 6 stairs, I explained that we only had 4 originally, and then was treated as if I was crazy because he thought they would be too steep. He ended up putting in 5 stairs but they were so close to the basement door that someone would have had to stand on the last stair to open the door to enter the apartment. I can’t even explain how upset we were about this. I called Dave to discuss this, and he originally took a tone that suggested he thought we were being unreasonable and that they had done a good job for us. It wasn’t until I started pointing out all the issues we had with them that he and Mike came out the next day to see it in person. They agreed it hadn’t been done properly at that point and then we entered into the 4th week of work, with them demoing the new stairs to redo them.

I would understand if our job was more complicated than most of what they take on (their reviews look like a lot of chimney work/tuckpointing/etc) or if we were one of their first few jobs of the season and they were ironing out some kinks. They did do a good job with supporting the top porch slab, getting it out of there, and building new walls. There's no doubt that everything is an obvious improvement over what we had. We were just surprised that with so many good reviews we had such a drastically different experience. This work isn't cheap. The whole project felt unnecessarily long, like no one was communicating with each other, and that the only way we got updates was by asking for them. Dave commented that we were in constant communication but honestly I think that's because we were the main initiators to try to understand what was going to happen next since it was moving so slow. We asked for a general order/timeline of work/process and never got it. These are pretty simple seeming things that would have gone a long way to raise our confidence in them.

After the job completed, with the stairs finally going in as they were originally, we received an email from Dave letting us know that after what they experienced with our job, they were going to start keeping more detailed notes, measurements and photos about everything as it existed before demo, and that they would make sure there was consistency with workers on site. This is obviously good going forward, but it was extremely stressful to be the homeowner that had to go through this in order for them to see a need for this process.

Top notch work, John was very professional. The job took longer to complete than discussed, partially due to weather. The work looks great though and everything was cleaned up really well.

Edited to add: They really stand behind their work: my warranty is for 5 years and they promptly fixed some additional cracking when I asked.

Complete electronic work order provided. The pricing was fair and David (owner) was accessible and provided timely responses. Joe and Rob were excellent with the chimney/parging around the house. These 2 take pride in their work.... missed a small spot, but you would have to be on your hands and knees to actually see it. Overall, highly recommend the company. BTW: JOe/Rob like medium double/double from Tim's

From the start I enjoyed working with Red Robin. I called the top 4 companies homestars recommended, and although most of them were pleasent, I found some were pushy and overly expensive to "cover their overhead".
John was pleasent and showed up on time, provided a competative quote the next day. He understood me when I said I wanted to restore the look of my 100+ year old house, while others told me I could cover it with stone veneer. He also suggested re-using the good bricks from my chimney to replace some "spalling?" bricks at the front that would be an issue in the future, you cant even notice the work now that its done. The workers were pleasent, respectful of my garden and did a great clean at the end. I have recomended Red Robin to my neighbours, and will continue to do so! Thanks again, and John I'll be sure to call you next summer for the flagstone!

We would highly recommend Red Robin Masonry to our friends and neighbors for masonry related work. We had two of our 1920's dated brick chimneys torn down and rebuilt from the roofline and three stories of scaffolding were set up. The entire team was a pleasure to deal with throughout the process and the expected timelines were met, despite having to manage through rainy days and respecting our neighbors whose driveway they had to borrow. John provided us with a detailed quote electronically and was the most responsive out of all the 6 other companies we were interviewing and highlighted certain things that could go wrong during the install and the potential cost (none of these examples surfaced in the end but we appreciated the heads-up on potential hidden costs). The work crew was friendly, extremely hardworking and left the site with minimal debris. Dave kept us in the loop on the job and followed up with us afterwards. We would definitely use them again for masonry-related work.