Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Ashland

Warning: Long review! This is my experience & my opinion. Also, this is more of a concern than complaint, although I am not too happy. I went in this afternoon (Sat Sept 9, 2023) right before noon. All I wanted was the Blueberry Bliss Smoothie!! This was my first visit at the Smoothie Cafe. I go up to the counter & a real nice young man takes my order. He tells me my total & I tap my credit card. The card reader does its thing & reads, "Approved". Suddenly he tells me that his side had logged out. So another employee comes over, she logs him back in, tells me I still owe the $6 & tip I put on that totaled $8.04. I explain to her I paid with my card & it had been approved on my end. She tells me it is showing on her side that I still owe the $8. She asks if I can check my bank to see if it had went through, if so, she could cancel it out. I did not have my phone on me to look, & that nice young man who originally rang me up pulls his card out & paid for it before I realized he had. I tell him he shouldn't have done that. So I hand him a $20 so he could have $10 & give me the other $10 incase my card was NOT charged, & if it had, I would come back, & have my charge canceled & he can keep the $10 I handed him since he paid for it too. He couldn't get change so I handed him 20 until I get home to check my bank. Sure enough It HAD went through! At this point I have now paid $28 for one smoothie. I drive back show them my bank app with the charge on there, & he hands me my $20 back. The whole thing doesn't feel right bc we BOTH paid for it & he should get HIS money back. While I was pleading with him to get a refund for himself, a manager comes up & asks what is going on. I explained everything about my card getting charged & the employee paying for it too. He then tells me to just give the employee $10 cash & that we would be even. Not reading into it too hard, I do! The manager tells me he has no way to reverse the credit card charge! You cannot cancel an order out?? I have managed & worked food and retail for over 20 years, I know better! So, instead of the manager trying to listen & take the time, his solution is for ME to give the employee his money back OUT OF MY POCKET! Now remember, I have already paid for the smoothie once, as did the employee (trying to be nice bc he assumed the whole thing was his fault when he rang me up and he was logged out at the moment my card was getting charged). So, just trying to get out of there the second trip in, I complied & gave him $10 to put in his pocket, (manager should have refunded him) then I left. On my way home I realized I had been DUPED! All bc the manager in the store at the time had zero cares for the unfortunate experience I had, trying to pay for one smoothie, & not have an employee pay for it out of his own pocket as well, using his debit card! My main concern is, how and why the system let the same transaction get two payments? Why doesn't the management care to take the time to try and make this right, instead of throwing up his arms saying there is nothing he can do? Having, or even asking the customer to "make it right", when in fact, it just caused me more money?! As of now, my charge is still pending, so it (could) fall off, but I highly doubt it bc it was not canceled or reversed by the merchant. Since the employee paid for the same transaction, theoretically you would think one would cancel out or "fall off" but who knows?! Who knows why the system took two of the same payments for one sale? If the charge does fall off of my account that will be great! Regardless, I should not have been brushed off and pay for the stores mistake out of my own pocket, nor an employee's pocket. I do not want to see anything happen with the young man who rang me up. He was just trying to help bc he felt bad that him being logged out resulted into this mess! It is not about the $8, $18 or even $28. It is about taking care of your customers and caring about their issues, especially when it is a transaction issue that was obviously on the merchants end!...

NIGHTMARE FINALLY RESOLVED.

his staff was great when i went in this morning. they were empathetic and very helpful. they easily did what he should have done all along and gave me what i paid for! that’s all i was looking for out of this. i guess he thought i was just gonna let it go 🙄 and im still going to put forth all the effort i can to continuously report him to the brand he’s so terribly representing 🤷‍♀️

ORIGINAL REVIEW: placed a mobile order for pick up when i got off work this morning because i had a coupon for a free smoothie that expired today.. got here and the doors are locked. so no breakfast for me and i can’t even cancel the order cuz it’s in progress and i can’t call the store to cancel because they’re closed and im not gonna stay up all day when i’ve been working all night to get this figured out. so that sucks. not a great way to start my morning. pretty frustrating.

UPDATE: even tho i never picked up my order i was charged for the order. figured it would fall off from a pending charge since the order was never completed and that’s not the case. it posted to my account yesterday. called to speak with the manager/owner to see about a resolution since no one responded to my complaint via the website and from the short conversation had he seems sketchy and at this point i feel like with no communication he is at the very least super unprofessional. hopefully they don’t get enough business that this is an issue for a lot of people. and even tho it’s only a couple dollars, it’s the principle. i work hard for my money and i don’t appreciate anything about how this situation has been handled. i never should have had to reach out more than once to get an issue resolved that your company caused. and his initial response on this review had also been deleted. maybe he’s trying to not acknowledge the problem. will be contacting cooperate.

SECOND UPDATE! Still no resolution the owner sent me a message then never responded again. Very unprofessional. They’ll literally give anyone a business these days. I’ll be going by the store in the morning to demand a resolution or refund. It’s sad I even feel like that’s what I have to do because this franchised store representing Tropical Smoothie Cafe stole from me and refuses to...

I’ve been waiting for this place to open for months since I seen them start building it. Today I finally had time to stop in and I was not disappointed. I first walked in and was greeted by all the employees. The lady at the register was busy with someone else so I waited patiently. As I was waiting I seen one employee ask to speak to another on the side, the first words I heard were “hey I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.” When I heard that I smiled and tuned out the rest of the convo because it wasn’t my business, but I was so impressed by the maturity of the two employees. It made my day. I got my two smoothies and they were delicious. Just a small bit of constructive criticism, my smoothie was missing about 3 inches at the top, I wasn’t bothered but I do know someone else could’ve been if they aren’t as understanding. Can’t wait to go back! Thank you for bringing a healthy alternative to...