Tropical Smoothie Cafe

If I could give this place no stars, I would. There are 11 people sitting waiting for food… every single person here isn’t eating, just waiting. The service is TERRIBLE!!!

Service is terrible, music loud, employess always hanging out in dining area with friends being really loud, not a good look for employees to be doing this. This has happened a few times at this location, may just have to start going to jamba, corporate should step in and do something. No surprise at the low rating

I keep telling myself that I will never go to another branch of this franchise, and yet I did. My mistake. I blame myself. I never ever have a good experience at any of the locations I’ve been to. I truly believe there is something wrong with their training and business model.
Yes, we had a big order this time. 15 smoothies. I did expect a long wait. But I also expect a certain level of competence from their staff. They advertised a «Buy two get one free» special, but somehow they forgot about this and charged me for all 15 drinks. It was such a fiasco getting the difference refunded as well. After some long debate, the manager (who wasn’t even onsite) finally approved a refund.
And after the long wait, (and to make a long, ridiculous story short), we ended up getting only 14 drinks. We counted everything in front of the person who took our order and they could not figure out which one was missing. At this point, we lost patience because we were there for over an hour so we just left.
I’ll never ever make the mistake of going to this franchise ever again.

Can’t complain about the food or smoothies. They are always delicious. But the service is HORRIBLE. They are always behind and slow. When I come in it takes about 10 – 15 minutes to make a smoothie. Now with their online ordering, I thought I could order ahead and show up later with my smoothie ready… But that’s a bad assumption on my part. I ordered 30 mins ahead and show up with my order not even started. Upon arrival, the employee looked at me like a deer in headlights, and then finally saw a ticket sitting in front of the register and said, «Ohhh, I never saw this. Let me get started on this right away». I would not recommend this location at all. I would drive the extra couple miles to get a smoothie at a different tropical smoothie.

Fucking horrible service .
Cashier didn’t know ANYTHING. Over charged me 2X. Then was really rude when my daughter asked for the water we ordered.

Love this location! The place is so spacious and it feels very relaxing and comfortable being in the place. I used to come here a lot before I moved and I never had problems here, not one!
Today I came in for the chia banana boost that I got a text for it being $ 1.99 so my husband and I came in and the cashier was talking to the people sitting at the table behind us so after chit chatting with them for a while he finally greeted us and took my order. I gave him my order and then he went to make it and I looked at my receipt and it didn’t say what I had said which was unsweetened so I asked him to make sure and in a barely audible voice he said yea. Ok so the cashier wasn’t the friendliest, but he did make it fast, which is why I give it a 3! No complaints on the time it took for us to come in and get out! Specially since we were in a hurry to get somewhere else.

Smoothies always come out great. However it takes WAY too long. This is the slowest tropical smoothie. Employees keep a very straight face. Almost making you feel uncomfortable coming here I’ve been to this location a few times because it is convenient but it would probably take me the same amount of time to drive down the street to the further location.

My smoothie was awesome so the only reason for the 3-​star rating is 2 things:
1) for some strange reason they had the right side door locked without a sign saying to use the other door. I counted almost 12 people pull on the locked door and the employees didn’t offer any explanation as to why.
2) The music! Please refrain from playing the «do-​me-​baby» booty shaking, long moaning, sexual type of music.

Dude seriously! Came here, ordered a smoothie, wasn’t given a straw until I asked, which no other customers in front of me had to do, this is a smoothie company, why wouldn’t I get a straw with my smoothie?. I sipped my smoothie down the street and it tasted very watered down and it was not made proper at all. I brought it back and received NO APOLOGY. They made it over I sipped this one in the parking lot and it still was very disappointing, even more than the first one. I said to the employee «This taste bad or like the measurements aren’t correct, she starred at me like I was an idiot.» I went back in the 3^rd time and just asked for a refund and was asked about the receipt, REALLY! I said to 2 employees that this was my 3^rd time coming in TODAY and I let them know my smoothie was unsatisfactory and neither of the girls apologized or acknowledged it and both asked for my receipt. Still NO APOLOGY OR COMPASSION. I will NEVER EVER RETURN! The customer service here is absolutely TERRIBLE AND SLOW (WAITED 15min the 1^st time, waited 10min for refund) On top of that I’m very very pissed off, this inconvenienced my entire 30 minute lunch, didn’t even get to eat!

The absolute worst customer service and lazy staff I’ve ever seen at a food establishment. Employees taking their time singing songs that are on the radio. There are children while playing unnecessary rap music with girls moaning and all that. Which I’m not opposed to that music but there’s a place and time. Eric with the dreads seems like he just doesn’t care about anything but getting off whenever his shift ends. Ellie took our order which I guess never made it to Eric to be made. This place is a joke and the only reason why I’m giving this rant is because I work near by and used to come here during breaks but this happens all the time never has been different. This place is an absolute no go. The owners need NEW motivated employees. I ended up leaving with no drink because they never made it after 30 minutes.

I really like the chicken salad sandwich here and some of their smoothies. I normally come here for their half sandwich and smoothy special which is about $ 8.
The problem is the service. I came in and waited for about 10 minutes and there was no one to be found. There was no bell or anyway of announcing my presence. Finally I had to make noise and then this girl with no personality came out and asked how long I had been waiting, I told her and she was like ok I need to figure out what is wrong with the door because it has a sensor that should let me know when someone opens the door. I really don’t care about the technical difficulties you are having when I didn’t even get an apology. That may have made a difference. But really, what is she doing here by herself anyway.
My sandwich on this occasion was still good but the smoothie was soupy.
I presented the girl with my stamp card and she stated they don’t accept or stamp cards anymore, okay… When did this happen, and is there a replacement rewards card??? No biggy but again the poor service just continued.
Not sure if this was an isolated occasion, however I don’t think I’ll be returning to this location.

Keep in mind there was only 1 person in front of me when I walked in and it still took 20 minutes for me to get my veggie hummus wrap.
The two very bored looking employees had absolutely zero sense of urgency with their job. No smiles and no eye contact, both things are very important to me when I’m giving someone my business. It shouldn’t matter how fancy or casual a place is. Employees should be lucky they have jobs. And business owners should be lucky they have customers.
If you’re looking for something «fast» but healthy, this establishment is only the latter. If you have some time, great, sit outside on their patio and enjoy yourself. I was just super annoyed by my experience because I was in a hurry and they were just moving like sad snails.

This location is absolutely horrible. 2 people working and it takes over 10 minutes to even get an order in? Especially when the place is empty. I’ve seen people standing in there waiting for their order to be taken, and new people will walk in and place their order first. Everyone needs a customer service class because they definitely lack it. Aaron is completely unprofessional and makes people feel uncomfortable. It may be a joke to some people but for this location, it makes it undesirable to come back.

Completely under staffed on a Saturday afternoon… As of now, 1.5 employees here and been here for 15 mins for one smoothie… It’s 12:29pm. I walked in at 12:12. What’s the deal!?!

Let me start by saying the food is delicious…
However, the service is terrible and the front counter/​cook staff are terrible.
Me and the wife came to meet for a quick lunch, there was only a single person in here when we arrived. We were greeted by walking in to the manager telling an employee «you need to follow the recipe, you can’t just make this up as you go.» –lol
Now when it comes to ordering, and they’re asking for specifics about your order and sides, you would assume he’s ringing it up right? Nope.
50% of the order was incorrect and some was just simply not rang up.
So the wife’s had to be ordered again, so we didn’t eat together after all.
2 stars because even tho this isn’t what I ordered it was yummy as hell.
–edit. Left out that even though we are the only people here. They just chucked the food on the counter and we had to walk up and get it.

As I’m not the first to comment on the poor customer service at this location, management clearly needs to change something around here; whether it’s their efforts to improve workplace morale or the employees altogether. This is a great location and a great franchise. It’s such a waste to be reflected with anything less than 4 stars.
**Five Stars to the franchise itself**
The smoothies are always great here, their super grain bowls are delicious and filling, and the rest of the food is decent for healthy «fast» food. They also run great promos and offer coupons, though it’s too bad they got rid of the customer loyalty cards.
**Two stars for the inconsistency of service at this particular location**
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, as I have always been content with the delivery of their product. However, this is now the third time I’ve had to wait five to ten minutes for someone to just come to the register and take our order… try politely calling out for someone? No response, they still come at their leisure. In each of these situations, there were at least two people working, zero orders in que, and attitudes of being completely unapologetic about the wait. Regardless of what behind-​the-​scenes responsibilities you have, customer service is supposed to come first. but that’s clearly not the case here.
I’ve also tried to call this place at least three times (twice to place an order for pickup and once just to get someone to come to the register) and it seems no one thinks answering the phone is part of their job.

Extremely bad service on this location. Seriously almost 20 min to get a smoothie. The cashier took about 6 orders in a row and proceeded to start making the smoothies afterwards. Super short staffed and unbelievable bad service.

Love the peanut paradise smoothie. Hate the customer service. Only 1 – 2 people working. Much better customer service at the Charleston/​Town Center location.

The first and only time I attempted to try this place, we placed our order then when it came time to pay, we were told that their card machine was broken and that they were only accepting cash. We did not have cash so we cancelled the order and left empty handed.
If the business can’t afford a decent machine that doesn’t break, then I don’t want to eat there. I also think it was poor on their part for not informing us that it was «cash only» soon as we came in. Nope, they let us waste time looking at the menu and ordering before telling us.
We were on a time crunch too because we were watching football at the nearby bar. We were trying to order during halftime. So double negative in my opinion.
Food may or may not be good. I dunno because I didn’t try it. Because of this experience, I’m not interested in going back.
Meh… No bueno.

For our first time here, the entire experience was a turn off. Drinking an ice slushy that tasted like water with a splash of kale wasn’t my intention or idea. Hey, I get it, they are trying to be «au natural» and healthy by using turbinado as sweetener or whatever. But man, should the smoothies also not have any flavor?
I ordered the newly advertised «Island Green — Spinach, Kale, Mango, Pineapple & Banana.» I also added vitamins: energizer, B12, Vitamin C, Multivitamin — it racks up fast at 99 cents each. I said the hell with it, since I was feeling under the weather.
The drink was very disappointing. I definitely expected more substance and flavor from all of the vegetables and fruit it advertised. No mango, no pineapple, no banana flavor? It wasn’t even naturally sweet from those fruits and vegetables. It was a light green color and all I could taste was a light hint of kale, mostly watered down.
It had waaaay too much ice compared to the fruit/​vegetable/​sweetener ratio they put into it. It was not worth the $ 9 and change.
Other annoyances:
1. We could barely read the menu on the wall due to blinding glare from the lighting in the place. (The girl just looked at me like I was crazy that I couldn’t read it.)
2. The girl behind the counter seemed annoyed we didn’t know the menu since it was our first time there.
3. All around uncomfortable vibe.
I would try another location in the future in hopes that it’s not the company itself that makes terrible drinks, but just an isolated situation with an employee.