Business Lockout in Palo Alto
A shop, an office or a lab opened once the lease or the manager's confirmation is shown, $139 to $255.
$139–$255
Typical price
22 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
The keys went home in someone else's bag. A restaurant on University Avenue with the fish delivery on the sidewalk and the deadlatch holding firm. A shop on California Avenue whose lock seized on the Sunday of the farmers market. A suite in Stanford Research Park where the badge reader lost its network overnight and the override key sits in a drawer behind the very door it opens. A dental practice on Middlefield Road with the first patient already parked. Tall Tree Lock & Safe opens commercial doors across Palo Alto for a figure said on the call.
Seven in the morning and one in the morning are the two hours this happens, and the doors differ by the hour. Morning calls are shops and offices: a University Avenue storefront with a narrow deadlatch in the stile, a Research Park suite with a lever mortise set or an interchangeable core, a dental practice with a keypad that will not wake. Night calls are restaurants: a kitchen door on the alley with a rim cylinder, a padlocked gate, a bar's back door with a push bar inside and key trim out. Each is picked, decoded or bypassed in the way that leaves it whole; a drill is the last resort and only with your agreement. Because a business is not a person, proof runs a step further: identification together with a lease, a state filing, a utility bill in the company name, or a text from the owner naming you. With the door open, the cylinder can be rekeyed in the same visit so the key that walked off stops mattering.
The figure for a business lockout sits between $139 and $255, and the $89 visit is already inside it. A single deadlatch or lever set in business hours is the $139 end. Mortise cases, interchangeable cores, restricted cylinders and doors with two locking points climb toward $255. A rekey in the same visit is $27 to $45 per cylinder on its own line. Between 8pm and midnight the $139 opening is said as $194; between midnight and 7am, $229.
You call and describe the door: the hardware in it and who holds the paperwork. The figure is said on the call. The van leaves Midtown, and a text names the technician and the window; University Avenue is about twenty-two minutes, Research Park closer to twenty-five. The door is opened without drilling wherever the lock allows, the latch is checked against its strike, a rekey is offered if a key is unaccounted for, and the receipt repeats the figure in the company name for whoever keeps the books. Card or tap at the door.
“Twenty past six in the morning at our lab in Stanford Research Park, a lever that turned but would not retract the latch, and a delivery waiting outside. The figure was $229 with the overnight hour inside. The technician arrived in eighteen minutes, checked my badge and the lease on my phone, and opened the door without drilling by working the latch directly. Four stars because the written line for the building manager came a day after the receipt rather than with it. The door itself has been fine since.”
Every job is priced from the list below. One figure is said on the call, with the visit, the labor and the parts inside it, and the receipt shows the same figure.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$55
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$90
FAQ
Business Lockout: quick answers
Our Research Park suite has a dead badge reader and the override key is inside. Will opening the door disturb the system?+
No. The reader and the cylinder next to it are separate systems that happen to share a door. The cylinder is picked; the reader, its controller and its wiring are not touched, and when the network comes back the badges work as before. Most facilities managers then have that cylinder rekeyed on the spot, so the override key in the drawer is no longer the only copy.
The owner is traveling and I run the floor. Can I authorize the opening?+
You can, on one of two grounds. Either your name is on the lease, the state filing or the utility account for that address, or the owner sends a text naming you, and the technician reads it with your identification in hand. The rekey afterward, if you want one, is $27 to $45 per cylinder and is also yours to authorize.
The last server left on Sunday night with the only key to the cafe on California Avenue.+
Monday morning is not lost. The stile cylinder is picked, the door is open in minutes, and the same cylinder is rekeyed on the spot at $27 to $45 so the key on the server's ring opens nothing. Two new keys are cut at the van, more if the closing list is longer. The receipt is made out to the cafe.
Related
More emergency services
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure, and the lock kept whole
Calls answered 24/7 across Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the figure said on the call, the lock is opened without drilling wherever it allows, and the receipt repeats the figure.