Smoothie King

Better than Jamba Juice but not up to par with Nekter Juice Bar. Location is great!
My order: I ordered a small Caribbean way + peanut butter (+ 99 cents). Total $ 7.19. Rather pricey for a small. They use frozen fruits and flavored powder so you can taste the chalkiness of the smoothie, but it’s still has a good consistency for what it’s worth.
Environment: The shop has somewhat of a health foods store feel. You order in the front and take your receipt to the back, walking past an aisle of protein bars & gluten free/​vegan snacks. The back is an open storage area with employees hanging out. somewhat odd.
Note: They have a $ 5 credit card minimum and an ATM located inside.

I ordered a kale, carrot smoothie and I was disappointed when I noticed that it’s all powder-​flavored veggies and fruits. I didn’t see one fresh vegetable. No more!

What a racket these places are. Where I went to the DuPont Circle location, my comments are much more about the brand rather than a single location. It all starts when you walk in and you see what I suppose is their organizational mantra: «Nutritional Lifestyle Center.» What a load of poppycock. More like welcome to «Glycemic Load Spiking Center.» I asked the cashier what actual fruit they had in stock. She was quite candid and showed me some brown frozen bananas, something that passed for strawberries, and some beatup pineapple. I asked about the blueberries, since they have multiple blueberry smoothies on the menu. Yea, that turned out to be some blueberry slurpee slush loaded with what they claim to be proprietary «juice blends,» ice creams, yogurts, secret potions and powders.” More like corn syrup, cane sugar, fructose, dextrose, that are frozen to form a super sugar sludge. What a complete farce. They have all sorts of questionable ingredients as well — «Diet Down Enhancers,» «weight gain protein blend,» «Turbinado (which is absolutely no different than table sugar).» Turbinado is craftily used here by this place. It is used to almost give the customer the sense they are ingesting some exotic health-​giving ingredient instead of the reality: insulin-​spiking empty calories.
Anyhow, I bought a Quest bar and bypassed my healthy smoothie from this place. I suggest you do the same.

Four starts because the finished product was awesome! I spotted this place out of the window of my hotel room and decided to give it a try. I went online first to review the flavor so I wasn’t clueless upon arrival. Good thing I did because they have a large selection of options and they vary by kids, fruit\veggie, meal replacement, etc. I had the lemon twist strawberry as is and it was great. not to sweet, a nice thickness and not seedy. My only complaint was the set up and process. When you walk in you place the order and he tells you the price, you can not pay him but he gives you a receipt. You then walk the receipt to the back give it to the other guy who makes the smoothie, then you pay him. (maybe this is the operations professional in me) I am sure there could be a more streamlined process. Needless to say this didn’t stop me from going a few more times during my trip. This location also has a large selection of healthy snacks and supplements and a small back area where you can sit an have your smoothie there.

I’ve been here a few times and the workers are really nice and offer advice on my smoothie. The key is to ask for one without sugar, I would not have known they had sugar but the workers were nice and hooked me up with exactly what I wanted. The location is Dupont which can have a lot of homeless people and aggressive beggars right outside, but I know there’s nothing I can do, so que sera sera.

I love this place! I’m becoming a regular! Lol. Taylan (Barista) is the absolute best! He perfect my Smoothies all the time! If you haven’t tried the «Caribbean Way», it is a must! My favorite!

Great spot for awesome smoothies!
Got the gladiator! Perfect taste and inexpensive :)

I’ve been here many, many times at this point.
They’re extremely slow — even if you’re the only person there. And I’m not sure why. It’s consistent, though — before work, during work, after work, weekends — sloooooow.
Also, their payment system is weird. You order, get a receipt that says what you are getting, and then walk around the counter to pay. It’s so weird. I’m not really sure why they do it.
That said, the selection is amazing — fruit smoothies, chocolate ones, all the fixins (protein boost, immunity boost, whatnot). They have pretty much every health/​weight loss thing you could ever think of as well.
I STRONGLY DISLIKE THE STYROFOAM CUPS. It’s 2013. You’re killing the planet. STOP IT.

I love that it carries those giant, soft, Alternative Baking Company vegan cookies. That’s the only reason I come here.

Tuesday, 7:00PM.
Re-​post of another review in Adams Morgan, but at a different spot.
An excuse to consume sugar and pretend it’s healthy…
Quickie:
+Many juice options
— Some of the «fruit» options are actually from concentrate (the knock is that it’s not presented this way, a bit misleading)
Suggestions:
–Transition to more sustainable containers please!
And then???
Jamba Juice would own Smoothie King in a 1:1 smoothie competition.

«Diabetes in a cup» just about sums it up. I love smoothies. I’m not amazingly picky. But this? …No.

i would give them 4 stars if they didn’t use styrofoam cups.
i like their immune builder drink (banana strawberry tasting), but i cannot claim that it does anything to one’s immune system.
seems a great place for a post-​workout treat.

Huge portions of crappy inferior ingredients. Smoothie King does not even stock fresh or frozen fruit. Everything is pureed to a syrup that tastes sickeningly sweet. Only good things on the menu are water and wheat grass.

First the location is great, it is very near to the Washington Sport Club in Dupont Circle. After a workout, if you want to go on a diet, you can go to the Smoothie King to get a giant size smoothie. There are plenty of fruits in it and you can choose to add vitamin supplements too. It is a health food fast food chain. Convenient.

As much as I love the smoothies here and the fabulous staff, their management refuses to let their employees offer the customers a stamp for a small smoothie or a medium/​large smoothie if you are getting a water, which is deceiving since there is a huge tub of ice cold waters that says «free if you buy a medium or large smoothie.» Then when you get to the register to pay you find out you can’t get a stamp for the almost $ 10 smoothie you bought since you took the bottle of water. Apparently you only get a free SMALL smoothie after you buy 10 medium or large smoothies (without a «free bottle of water») too. Seems like the management needs to have some more appreciation for their regular customers.

In addition to being terrible for you and full of pseudo-​scientific crap, my one experience with the staff at this franchise left me convinced they were both incompetent and dishonest. I recommend avoiding this franchise at all costs and hopefully they will go out of business soon and something better will open up in that spot.

I loved my medium activator. Not for those of small appetite

First– Smoothie King is fantastic. Second– you can order almost any smoothie on the menu without sugar, so one shouldn’t be concerned about «diabetes in a cup.» The staff here is helpful, friendly and is willing to work with you if you just can’t decide between all of the options. Just tell them what you’re interested in and they’ll make something for you if the exact match isn’t on the menu.

Diabetes in a cup.
First of all, order a size smaller than you think you want. I ordered a large and I could have nursed an Ethiopian village with this thing.
Their menu is a joke. They break it down into sections that offer anything from smoothies that help build muscle, boost energy, or slim you down — yeah okay. Their staff doesn’t seem to know what they sell — I basically had to point at the menu to explain what I wanted. And no — I do not want to drop extra money for ENERGY BOOSTERS or MUSCLE BUILDERS!*!*&@*!*!*!&@^#!!*!*!!* PEW PEW Welcome to the gun show!
The smoothie itself wasn’t too bad. But marketing customers into dropping almost 10 bucks on a smoothie that WILL MAKE YOU SKINNY but will probably leave you with a tummy ache is just lame. Next thing you know they’ll be selling those shoes that build muscle with every step and vibrating belts that give you a six pack from the comfort of your own couch!!! AS SEEN ON TV SO IT MUST BE TRUE.

I was hot, thirsty, and feeling vitamin-​deprived, so I thought that the obvious cure for my ailments would be a smoothie. And lo and behold, we were walking through North Dupont, so the Smoothie King sitting here seemed like the perfect solution. Not so.
The store is emblazoned «Nutritional Lifestyle Center,» and these words ought to be a caution to us all. First there is the dizzying, incomprehensible, menu. Rather than being divided along any sensible axes like «type of fruit,» or even «general types of fruit included here» the menu is divided on the basis of the purported mumbo-​jumbo health effect that the smoothie will likely provide for you. I don’t know, I don’t care, and I just want to consume a large amount of pureed blueberries!
Second, almost every smoothie has weird junk added to it– electrolytes, or protein, or who knows what. I don’t need chemicals, I don’t need a vita-​boost, I just want a lot of fresh fruit in a cup. The final result was not that great (fine, but not overly tasty), and kind of expensive ($ 5 for a small), and just left me feeling vaguely sick and dissatisfied.
I’ve awarded two stars instead of one as a gesture of gratitude to the very helpful lady running the smoothie machine, who did her best to help us navigate the massive menu of overpriced mumbo jumbo masquerading as refreshing fruit drinks. Of course, she had limited resources to work with.