Old Focals
Category: Eyewear & Opticians [Edit]
Neighborhood: Pasadena45 W Green St
Pasadena, CA 91105 (626) 793-7073
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
11 reviews
Neighborhood: Wilshire Center
"Mr. Kim's shop and business is truly a wonderful experience. He spent more than an hour with me whilst I tried on numerous glasses from his…" read more »
13 Reviews for Old Focals
What a gem of a place in Pasadena! My boyfriend and I stumbled in here on a whim last weekend and spent over an hour finding some of the coolest vintage frames and chatting it up with the nicest sales clerk in the LA vicinity, David. The sheer number and quality of the frames here makes it the mecca of vintage eyewear. Viva l'Old Focals.
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Old Focals is the ONLY place to go for vintage/retro eye ware. Rus is a gem of a shop keeper as are all the swanky folk at the counter. You will never get service as fabulous as the kind they give you here, and like everyone else has said, the prices are pretty good.
*Need a new pair of fabulous one of a kind glasses, go to Old Focals.
*Have a great pair but they're broken? Old Focals!
*Need some nifty sunglasses? Old Focals!
*Have a hankering for peach ice cream? Fosselman's! (nowhere near Old Focals but some pretty darn good ice cream can be found there.)
*Not sure if the vintage frames you found at the thrift shop will hold up to new lenses? Old Focals!
Seriously, Old Focals is swoonyville for us cats eye wearing gals. Make it a day trip. Pick out new frames at Old Focals, grab a burger at Pie and Burger head out to Alhambra for some thrifting and get yourself a scoop or two of fresh made ice cream from Fosselman's and you'll be one delighted swankster.
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I have been looking for a place (and not ebay) that sells vintage eyeglasses for awhile. A buddy of mine recommended Old Focals. So I cruised down to the Pasa-dinky to check it out.
Doods: if you are on the mission to find some "nifty" (yes I said it. let's bring it back, eh?) glasses frames, roll on up.
The store is small, dusty and hot. It is tucked behind the abomination of a street called Colorado Blvd, on Green St: the real "Old Town". Small it may be, there are probably about 1,000 frames in there and you will find a pair of glasses that you like. It's actually kind of overwhelming how many pair they have.
David, the dude running the shop when I was there, was probably the most helpful employee I have ever experienced. He actually is the person who picked out my glasses! He looked at me, saw that I was having trouble picking out a pair of glasses, and suggested a pair for me. They were perfect! He definitely knew what he was talking about. In fact, he was a super cool guy. We chatted for about half an hour afterward, and he never rushed me to leave or anything.
Actually, Old Focals was a place that, to me, represented what Pasadena should embody: an old fashioned independently owned shop that puts their customers first. It seems that a place like Pasadena, such an old and wonderful city, drowned in the sea of conglomerate-shops and the chain-restaurants. Old Focs brings back the old.
Next pair of glasses: definitely coming from here.
5 stars. Hands down.
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Am I the only person who realizes that $80 for a pair of vintage frames you could get for $10 on Ebay is ridiculous?
The guy who "works" there didn't even bother to acknowledge our presence. He sat there and played guitar.
When my boyfriend finally asked him a question, he arrogantly responded with, "I don't like those frames on you." And just for clarification: the bf was not asking how they looked, just if they had any more glasses in back.
After pulling the guy's teeth, he finally gets out this shitty little box of "backstock" which was full of old glasses just THROWN together like they were pieces of junk. It really made us want to spend that $80, you know?
Last, but not least:
"Do you know of any place to get lenses put in?"
"Uh. ::thirty second silence::: No."
What a fucking freakshow.
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I was on superfuture, confused as to where I could find awesome glasses. Someone suggested Old Focals so I figured I'd give them a shot. Stopped by today with my family and it was great!
The girl there was really helpful and I finally found the exact glasses I had been scouring for. The shop isn't exactly the cleanest but it does have a huge selection of vintage and bizarre frames :)
saw a dude at the epic pasadena whole foods with sweeeeet specs. he says old focals provided the goods. i take my 'flex spend' account card from my master and show up ready to buy buy buy. not initially impressed, but look a little harder and find 2 pairs i like and go to pay. cash gets a discount but i'm corporate backed so i pull out the card and hope that it works. success!
loving my new frames after the nice man at happy eyes put my lenses in.
Oh, yeah.
Butt-kicking vintage frames, low pressure.
My friend stole my sunglasses and my weak Pacific NW eyes were burning from the rays of the sun. I was rescued by David at Old Focals.
I had no idea that they could manufacture the lenses in a mere 10 minutes. Chose the frames, David fabbed the lenses, I was saved!
We even chatted about his band and his gf in Paris. Not cheap, but oh so fun.
Tres cool.
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I had the best experience here today.
I walk in with a pair of thrift-store purchased frames that didn't fit; the arms of the glasses too short for my big head. I thought to take them in to see if I could purchase a similar styled frame or possibly replace the arms with some new ones.
I tell the clerk my problem. He doesn't say a word, looks at the side of my head, takes my glasses and starts bending the arms. In a matter of about thirty seconds he hands them back to me.
They fit perfectly now. Not only that, he recommended I get a prescription at Costco for forty bucks and the actual lenses at Happy Eyes in Glendale.
Selection [ 4 stars ]
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Granted the selection is relatively small, though what they do have is quality, and vintage. And besides, its a boutique. If you want the typical mass market stuff, I'd recommend Linden Optometry on Colorado.
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Service [ 5 stars ]
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Extraordinary. See above.
Atmosphere [ 4.5 stars ]
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Nice for what it is. Walking in feels like being transported back half a century into an old brick and wood eyeglass shop. Relics of photographic contraptions adorn the interiors and on the walls are pictures of actors like Tom Hanks in Catch Me If You Can wearing Old Focals frames.
Would I recommend it?
Most definitely. If you ever have a hankering for something other than the typical Gucci / Prada / D&G fare, check this place out.
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On Monday I was cleaning the grease from the bridge of my glasses and they disintegrated into two pieces of useless crap. I was horrified. I have contact lenses so I got by this week OK but I HATE my contacts and have been stressed that I wouldn't be able to find something in the Hollywood area for a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time. I moved to the area not too long ago and had no idea where to start.
I turned to the Yelp community to guide me on my LA journey to the perfect eyeglasses. Old Focals came up and the reviews made me believe I had found my place. Cool vintage looks for reasonable pricing? Perfect.
My Saturday trek from H-wood to Pasadena turned out to be the perfect day thanks to Old Focals. When I arrived I was greeted by a sweet and friendly dog and then was pleasantly surprised to find all the coolest classic styles of eye-wear I could ever want to choose from.
I was worried that vintage = $$$$ but I went ahead and tried on a ton of glasses until I narrowed it down to two pairs that I liked a lot. I asked the guy working there, who was super nice, which pair he thought I should go with. He asked me if I was worried about the price and I said not really(I was but I also don't want crappy frames to be a part of my face for years so I was willing to bite it and pay top dollar for what I wanted). He asked because he thought if I had the money that I should buy both pairs, get lenses in both, then whatever pair I didn't wear as much I could get tinted and use as prescription sunglasses. OK, this sounded like a good idea actually since I've needed sunglasses for a long time... but what about price?
He gives me a pretty good price and then proceeds to knock the price down if I wanted to get both. Awesome. I had actually already been thinking about getting both and now I was going to get both for a deal.
After paying for the frames he gave me Happy Eyes' card and since I live in Hollywood he also suggested a place near me that had good prices on lenses. Sweet! Then he asks me what my friend and I were doing in Pasadena after leaving his shop and suggested a restaurant that perfectly satisfied our hunger for lunch.
Next I headed over to More Vision on Hollywood Blvd and they set me up with lenses for a great price. While at More Vision I saw that every pair of frames was priced at nearly DOUBLE what I paid for my awesome pair. All in all I got two pairs of unique eyeglasses for the price of one average pair.
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I've never spent more than 10 bucks on sunglasses b/c I never really needed them back in nyc, but everybody and their uncle wears shades here in LA...it's like they magically grow out of their face once they step out into the sun while I'm squinting as hard as I can to avoid horrific eyepain...envying the lucky with their shiny protective eyewear.
So I finally purchased my first REAL pair of sunglasses today - found these kickass vintage frames at Old Focals (my new favorite store, and probably THE reason why my roomie and I decided to move to Pasadena...seriously!) and turned them into my loverrly "LA shades", so now I'm kickin' it cali-style like everybody and they uncle, which is all I've ever wanted to do really........
I will cherish these frames so very dearly......!
ps. the service was awesome and sammy the dog is oh very affectionate!
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I was watching Woody Allen's genius comedy "Bananas" on DVD and saw how frakking cool the people's glasses were back in the 70s and thought to myself "Where the frack do I get frames like that?" You see, children, most new styles annoy me - I despise people who are, like, "Ooh, I have the new Armani frame. Look at me. I'm special." [dances like a monkey]. Plus I have a large noggin, so it's hard for me to find glasses at LensCrafters anyway.
Then one day, when I was donating blood at the studio where I worked (in the Soul Train soundstage no less) I looked over at the gurney beside mine and saw that the guy next to me had frames from the 60s. I asked him where he got his glasses and the cat reluctantly said Old Focals.
That weekend (after I replenished by depleted platelets by drinking half a bottle of vodka and eating a whole side of cow... good times) I went to Pasadena and acquired the 70s tortoise shell vintage frames I now wear at Old Focals.
The joint is a little bigger than a shack, but they've got a lot of old (or at least old-looking) specs that I believe the owner acquires from and for costumers doing period films / tv shows / stage plays.
That's all.
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this place has it all... you can get your shades made right there in 15 min... theres parking a kid working there named David that is very cool and gets it done...
enough good styles... i got my gold frames there.. would not go any where else... lens crafters is for punks... get something cool... go to OLD FOCALS
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Absolutly worth the drive from Santa Monica. Insane selection of 40's-60's frame gems.
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