Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in La Plata

I don't typically write reviews, but why not...

Positive - We had a descent sized order (6 smoothies), it took approximately 15-20 min to receive the order once placed...

Negative - My family and I walked in (with the lovely door chime to announce our entry), and stood... and waited for approximately 5-7mins without ANY form of acknowledgement from ANY of the staff. After waiting, I asked if there was a manager on site, and I was informed there was "no manager there right now"... We continued to wait... Still with no acknowledgment, or even a simple statment of "Hello or good evening, we will be right with you, we r just very busy at the moment and are trying to catch up" etc, etc... Eventually, the young lady (with a sleeve tattoo) stood at the register and looked at us... And looked... And looked. I asked "are you ready?" Was answered with " yeah " We place our order, and was advised as she swiped our card. " It'll be a little while, 25 minutes or so because we have a lot of online orders "

As a previous food service worker, I understand that there will be times of extreme busyness, Even chaotic at times, and it feels like you will never catch up. BUT, I also know that customer service is everything! A simple acknowledgment of our arrival, a quick "If you don't mind waiting a moment, one of us will be right with you " would've made all the difference in this review.

3 team members on site, and not 1 greeting/acknowledgment

In addition, by the time we got our smoothies, there were almost 10+ customers in the store waiting to place, or pick up orders. None, looked quite pleased with the service. It is in MHO that a manager /shift supervisor should always be on site to help with higher than usual influxes of orders /customers. Or even to handle, unhappy customers. How this site was being ran, it is evident that some form of management should have been on site.

Customer service training is DEFINITELY needed.

It is highly unlikely, that I will patronize this location again in the future.

But at least the smoothies were...

Perfect place to come and decompress for 32 minutes while waiting for your smoothie to be made and watching the staff flail about helplessly.

Not to armchair quarterback this, but perhaps more than two people should be working on a Saturday afternoon at lunch time. I would also recommend arguing in the back room away from customers with employees that are trying to call out sick for a later shift. Might also consider restocking your utensils behind the bar completely when you take a break to grab a single fork for a customer since it’s just time wasted otherwise.. additionally, I noticed this location seems to have a lot more excess smoothie left in blender after pouring in cup which could explain the ‘watery’ complaints made by others. Rough business practices and the customer shouldn’t be responsible to pay for “newly trained staff” that haven’t learned yet or for a new store’s growing pains. Finally, the manager could really be more effective and make the customers less uncomfortable about their wait if she would stop sighing heavily and looking at all of us with such disdain. One star back for not asking me to leave for my young child having a Chick-fil-A cup while we...

Wash your hands Please!

Upon parking in front of the cafe, I noticed an employee coming from another restaurant nearby. I didn't think much of it why I placed my order, until she started to make my smoothie without washing her hands. When I asked her to wash her hands (which I should NOT have had to do), she said something to the effect of "I'm not really touching anything" Then her co worker tried to reassure me that she usually washes her hands. Well, she DID NOT this time and she did not even apologize for it, as evidence by her attitude. I almost felt as if I inconvenienced her by asking her to wash her hands, because she clearly didn't see anything wrong with coming back from getting her breakfast and who knows where else and immediately making smoothies for Tropical Smoothie customers. My smoothie and sandwich were good, but I will drive out of the way to go to the...