Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Lakeland

Absolutely the WORST experience I've ever had. I was the only person in the establishment when I placed my order with the cashier. I ordered a hummus veggie wrap for myself and a smoothie as well. Additionally, I ordered 2 children's smoothies (the chocolate & banana) for my kids along with meals for them. The cashier was having difficulty finding the items in the system & stated that he was new, while asking another crew member for help.. That I completely understand and was not at all bothered by. It's everything after the fact. A few more people trickled in and some were picking up mobile orders. One of my children's smoothies was up first. It was not the one that we ordered. It was strawberry banana. My children ordered the SAME smoothies, so being served in such small cups, they should have been up together. Nope. Waited an additional 6 minutes or so for the next kids smoothie. At that point, I was already becoming slightly frustrated, but didn't complain. I reasoned that mistakes happen. Even though my child had the wrong smoothie, we let it go and continued waiting on the rest of our items. The kids food was up next. Then I waited another nearly 10 minutes for my food, only to receive THE WRONG item. I wanted what I ordered & paid for, so I waited even longer for the correct order to be made. Also, they informed me at that point that they did not have the side that I ordered.. Like, seriously? On top of all of that, here we are, over 20 minutes later AND I'M STILL WAITING ON MY SMOOTHIE. I was the first person in the restaurant to order, yet multiple people (at least 10) who had come in after me were having theirs made and exiting. There was another woman who had come in right after me & she was becoming extremely upset with the disorganization as well. She stated that she was about to leave because she didn't understand why everyone who had been in line after her was receiving their items and we were still waiting. When the smoothie finally came (after I went up to speak with the staff) it was flavorless and not made properly. My son noted that his had giant chunks of ice all in it. Nearly $40 spent on such a terrible experience is inexcusable. This facility used to be ran & staffed much better, and I always had a wonderful experience with zero complaints. The last few times that I've visited, it has become worse and worse. Someone needs to do a major overhaul on this restaurant or I can guarentee, it will not be operational much longer. With the continually rising costs of inflation, spending that amount of money somewhere is a luxury for most people. This location, in its current state, is NOT worth spending your hard earned money at. We will not be returning. The downtown location is a much...

I’m only leaving 1 star because I have to in order to leave a review. If I could leave zero I would. I walked in today with my younger siblings around 7:30 pm to get a smoothie for us and and as soon as we walked in the 2 girls working looked at the door saw us walking in and looked me and my siblings up and down with annoyed faces, literally rolled there eyes and continued their conversation. Once we got up to the register, the girls still continued their conversation not even acknowledging that we were there. I waited patiently trying not to be rude and I finally asked “hey, can I order?” The girls still continued looked at me with a stank face and said “mhmmm” and then took my order. Again, she looked VERY annoyed. My little siblings felt uncomfortable also, my little sister asked if we should leave. Anyways, I saw that when she was making my smoothies she was doing a very sloppy job, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she’s just rushing and my smoothie will still be good. I got a peanut paradise smoothie and I saw her scrapping the peanut butter container hard and then put water in it, shook it up and poured it into the blender. I thought how weird because it was a lot of water and I didn’t know they use that much water in smoothies? .. she made the other 2 that I ordered for my siblings and still seeing her do a sloppy job with those, I’m not one who likes confrontation so I tried to just wait and hope for the best. But when she gave us the smoothies they were NOT even full to the top. They looked like someone drank about a quarter of it. The lids weren’t pressed down onto the cup, they were just placed on, and the cups were so messy, with smoothie all on the sides. Again, because I’m not confrontational, I walked to where there was napkins, cleaned my cups and left. I didn’t say “thank you” which I felt so rude for doing but I was so aggravated with the experience. We got to the car and the smoothies were so disgusting. All watery, none had any thickness to them, and were just a mess. I have never had a bad experience at other locations but this one was a nightmare. I won’t be returning to this one, and I wonder if managers even know what is going on in there store and how rude and unprofessional their employees are. If they hate their job so much, why work there? I wasn’t rude, and I came in smiling. Yall need to do better. I really had such a bad experience that I will find a way to reach out to corporate (if they even care to do anything) and see if maybe they can get help at this location. Worst...

My husband and I stopped here on our way through town on 6/21/24 at 7:00 pm. This was the absolute worst experience at any Tropical Smoothie Cafe I have encountered!! We entered the line of 3 people in front of us, and stood there for 15 minutes with not a word from the only staff member that we could see. I asked if he was the only 1 working and he said there was a person in the back. IT’S NATIONAL SMOOTHIE DAY! How could you not staff appropriately? Why isn’t there a manager there? As we stood there the group in front of us left leaving us 3rd in line. We stood there another 15 minutes and not 1 of the people in front of us got their order taken! I will add that there was a total of 4 people that had ordered and were waiting when we arrived. They didn’t get their food before we left! As we stood in that line we noticed that the only orders being made were take out so we ordered in the app left and went to Sam’s got the 3 things we needed there and came back for pick up. We ordered chicken bacon ranch flatbreads and 1 watermelon and 1 blueberry bliss. My sandwich had so much ranch in it that it was just a mess and my husbands had no ranch at all. Husbands watermelon smoothie was super thick and I my smoothie was a strawberry banana that was so runny it I’m sure was just one that had been sitting in the machine for a long time. It was definitely not a blueberry bliss! When my husband ran in to pick up the order he didn’t even notice that it wasn’t what I ordered and by then we were already back on the road. Also when he went back in to pick up our online order 20 minutes later only 2 people that had already ordered and were waiting had gotten their order, the 2 other people in front of us had still not got their order taken yet, and 2 other groups had came in and where in line waiting to order. My husband said that in the online order pickup there was orders sitting there not picked up that had time stamped at 3:00!! The customer service was by far the worst that I have ever encountered! The food was made awful! The smoothies were not made correctly and 1 wasn’t even what I ordered! WORST EXPERIENCE AT ANY TROPICAL SMOOTHIE CAFE I HAVE BEEN IN!!!!!!! This place needs new management that is there helping run things smoothly! I felt really bad for that man working in the front but he should have acknowledged that there was people at the counter and should have taken our orders and not just had us standing there for 30 minutes...