Smoothie King — Restaurant in Kenner

Usually, we do not like posting negative reviews; but we feel like this visit was bizarre. Our first visit to New Orleans and we missed the storefront Smoothie Kings, so we thought we scored when we arrived at the airport. We waited for about 5+/- minutes in front of the cash register with no acknowledgment. The reason why we didn't say anything was because we thought the cashier was busy. In reality, we were just being ignored. After finally taking our simple order, we waited for about an additional 24 minutes for the smoothie. One of the employees started making the smoothie, but he walked away in the middle of the process and never came back to finish it. We thought it was odd, but things got more weird. A different employee continued making the smoothie. When the smoothie was finally done, he had trouble pouring it from the blender to the 32oz cup. We observed the employee as he tried multiple times to pour the Smoothie into the cup. The first two attempts were futile. The Smoothie would not budge from the blender container. Both times, he had to return the container to the blender base to blend it some more. The third time could've been the charm. As the employee shook the blender container, the Smoothie dumped into the cup, spilling to the sides. As he struggled to pour into the cup, anyone standing nearby could clearly see that the cup was already full, and he should have stopped and maybe use another cup to scrape off the excess smoothie. Instead, he decided to use his index finger & thumb to clean up the overflow and scoop the smoothie into the cup. After picking up our jaws off the floor, we decided to decline the order and ask for a refund. The person in charge graciously offered to make the smoothie herself, but we politely delclined. This incident took about 37+/- minutes from standing in line to receiving the refund. After observing the entire staff's behavior during the whole ordeal, it looks like there are a couple of things missing: More training & Friendly, Customer-oriented Employees. I hope the owners will take the reviews seriously and review the cameras to improve...

My rating is merely a reflection of my own experience, without blaming anyone: It was clear that this store was severely understaffed. I waited about 20-25 minutes with only three people ahead of me to get my smoothie. During the entire waiting time, I observed only one person working from beginning to end, meaning that he was the only one taking up orders, creating smoothies, washing blenders, and more. He was doing the best he could. To maximize efficiency, he had to leave the water on to get the blenders clean while greeting new customers, and still managed to greet me with courtesy when it was finally my turn. A second person was able to help by starting the blenders and pouring the smoothies to deliver to customers after handling a package containing additional store supplies, which increased efficiency for a bit. But one thing that concerned me the most was that neither of them seemed to care beyond the routines, which wasn't their fault, but rather a bigger question of management, pay, and general lack of support. I am certain that the store management needs to tackle issues such as staffing, culture, training, and motivating employees in general to provide customer service. One thing I will point out was that I bought a 20oz smoothie and despite they made a bit more than the 20oz cup, they poured everything into a 32oz cup instead without filling the cup up all the way to the top, so of course I took it and appreciated the move.

I normally do not write reviews for chain stores, but my experience here today warrants some level of awareness that I believe others can use so they can have realistic expectations upon visiting the store for whatever purposes. Please just remember to be nice to the employees there as lack of staffing clearly is taking a toll on them, on top of other possible reasons that we...

This is the WORST smoothie king I've ever experienced. It really is sad that these employees are representing New Orleans this way. Management needs to re-evaluate everything. These employees lack basic customer service skills and basic education as well. I literally watched a trainee make a smoothie, pour it into a 32oz cup, which was only filled 3/4 of the way, and she tried to hand that off as a completed order. They had someone taking orders, the next person start the order, and someone else add ice and blend the order. No one knew how to make anything and smoothie king has the same smoothies for at least the last 25 years (This location doesn't have the seasonal/promotional smoothies). It was like they didn't know how to read 😬 they were literally looking at the recipe cards for every order and still messing up. Here's some basic customer service tips: 1) stop holding personal conversation with each other while you have a line of customers that's why you can't seem to focus and complete a simple smoothie order. 2) listen for correctness, not just to get customers out of line, 3) if you don't know what you're doing go get your manager, 4) if you mess up an order you correct it immediately, you don't continue to make orders. There's a line for a reason, meaning you service the first customer then the next, so on and so forth (that's called chronological order babes). Don't skip that line to finish orders for other airport personnel first (they are in their place in a LINE). 30+ minutes for a smoothie is CRAZY. And trying to get a refund results in an...