1 Hour Eyeglasses in Waterloo — Made in Our Own Lens Lab
Most opticians courier your order to an outside lab. We built ours into the store. For the majority of prescriptions that means your lenses are cut, edged and mounted while you wait — roughly an hour, start to finish, at 330 Phillip Street.
A pair of glasses is only as good as the lens work behind it, and lens work is where most of the waiting happens. Send a job to an external lab and it queues behind everyone else’s; the days you spend without your glasses are mostly transit and someone else’s schedule.
Premier Optical runs a full-service laboratory on the premises. We surface, edge, tint and mount lenses ourselves, with our own opticians and our own equipment, and we track each lens from blank to finished frame. Owning that process is what lets us offer a genuine one-hour turnaround on the majority of prescriptions — and it is also why we can hold the quality standard, because nobody is checking our work but us.
Glasses made while you’re waiting. Single vision, bifocal and progressive lenses all go through the same lab.
What our on-site lab does while you wait
Edging and mounting
Your lens is cut to the exact shape of your chosen frame and mounted by hand. This is the step that turns a stock lens into your glasses, and it is the one we never send out.
Lens replacement in your own frame
Bring a frame you already own and we’ll re-lens it, provided the frame is still sound enough to take the cut.
Coatings and tints
Coatings and tints are applied here, without the job leaving the building. Call the store for current options.
Verification before you leave
Every finished pair is checked against your prescription on our own equipment, then fitted and adjusted to your face before you walk out.
What the one-hour service covers
The one-hour service covers the majority of prescriptions, including single vision, bifocal and progressive lenses.
There is no cut-off time. Come in at any point during opening hours and we will start the work.
A small number of lenses must be made to order. Those take one to two business days.
Call (519) 888-1919 with your prescription in front of you and we will tell you what is possible today, before you make the trip.
Who uses the one-hour service
Three kinds of people, mostly. Someone whose only pair has just broken and who cannot drive, work or read until it’s replaced. Someone leaving the country in two days who has left it late. And people who live far enough out — Elmira, St Jacobs, Conestogo, Stratford, Cambridge — that a second trip to collect a finished pair costs them most of an afternoon.
If you’re driving in from out of town, call first. We would rather confirm your lenses are in stock than have you make the journey twice.