Customer Reviews

William Bounds Rita Custom Combination Salt Shaker & Pepper Mill

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've owned 2 of these for a few years. I can't recommend them, and I'm surprised they are still being sold. They are poorly designed and low quality. If you set the grinder to its coarse setting, it will slip back to its fine setting as soon as you twist it to grind. I've given up trying to get coarse or medium pepper and just leave it set to fine. Both grinders do this.
On one of the grinders, the trim ring at the bottom fell off. Later, the plastic part(it holds the salt) that turns the grinding mechanism broke. The other one hasn't broken yet but has many stress cracks in the plastic.
The salt shaker part of this is marginal, but at least it comes off so you can clean it. The part that holds the pepper does not come apart and you cannot get in there to clean it.
If these only cost a few dollars, I wouldn't complain about them, but they aren't cheap. At this price, they should work much better and last much longer.

As a gadget guy, I am fustrated by things that look nice but don't work well. Most pepper mills fall into this category for me, except this one. It is exceptionally reliable, efficient and elegant enough for company use. I won't buy any any other.

I LOOOOOOVE pepper grinders. I have owned at least three. This one caught my eye when I was registering for wedding gifts, but as I was looking at it I discovered that the tops were very wobbly. Only about 1 in 10 turned the way it should. The others were very loose, and did not hug to the pepper mill tightly enough.

*****Final Thoughts*****
There are plenty of good pepper mills out there, and most of them grind pretty well. I'm sure this one did to, but the salt-topper/grinding handle was not secure enough for comfortable use.

I have used two of these in my kitchen for years and find it getting worse as time goes on. It never was too great to begin with!

There is no way to get precise grind adjustment, the pepper clogs up in normal kitchen use. The body of the mill is peeling and the finish is falling off into my food.

To get the top off to refill requires brute strength and usually involves spilling either the salt or pepper or both. Salt corroded the metal parts and it all sticks together like a rusty old wagon wheel.

Way overpriced for this kind of product....

I received this as a gift, and I love it. The pepper grinder twists easily, and pepper comes out the bottom. It adjusts easily from fine to medium to coarse. The old grinder (the one that's going in the trash) was impossible to adjust, and after a lot of work gave up hardly any pepper. This new one works like it's supposed to!

I've had this pepper mill for two years, and I have no idea what these poor reviews are all about! This mill works consistently, with no clogging, no mess, no fuss, no frustration, no tarnishing, no cracking. We use it daily, and have gone through four or five refills. This is the first mill we've bought that works perfectly, every time.

The salt container comes off easily to refill the pepper (screw off the top bolt to refill the salt, then screw off the salt container to refill the pepper).

This is a fine addition to any working kitchen.

This was an impulse buy from my "gold box" offers. As it turns out, I'm glad I was impulsive. It is handsome, well made, easy to fill and does a wonderful job grinding pepper to the desired coarseness. I'm also happy to note that it has been easy to keep clean and has not tarnished a bit.

This is still a very good combination salt shaker/pepper grinder but we bought it as a replacement for our original one that lasted over 10 years. This is not the same. The pepper doesn't have the same grind and doesn't even have the three settings. Since our old one broke at the salt, we kept the old bottom and the new top and are back in business. If you can find the original version, buy it.

I like this peppermill combo, but I find it impossible clean out the pepper dust that clings to the sides. What is the point of having a clear peppermill when it is clouded up with dust? I tried calling the company, but they didn't have any good ideas for cleaning it. They want to sell me some "triple cleaned" peppercorns.

We purchased what I think is exactly the same William Bounds combo salt shaker/pepper mill, except that the trim on ours is black instead of chrome, in 1987. It has been used virtually every day since then and grinds like the day it was new. So why am I giving it 4 stars instead of 5? First, after about 10 years or so the acrylic cylinder that the pepper is stored in became opaque. It looks very ugly, and it is hard to see if it needs to be re-filled. Second, it leaves a lot of pepper on the table. I'm pretty sure that all mills with the grind coming out the bottom do this, though, so if this one ever breaks, I'm going with one designed so that it sits with the grinder outlet pointing upwards.