Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Maryland

After reading some of the other reviews for this location, it looks like my experience was not unique. My 1st time going to a TSC was at the location by my job in a different county. After my 2nd visit I decided I had a new lunch spot and would take advantage of the survey coupon offer printed on EVERY receipt (it even lists the code as NATIONAL). The taste of the smoothies from that location was great. But the price for a smoothie and food can be a bit much for a regular lunch spot.

I liked the place so much I convinced my wife to drag the kids out with us on my day off to go to this location in Gambrills as it is the closest to home. Of course I planned to use my survey code for part of our order but I was bluntly told "we don't do that here". I politely asked, this is a TSC franchise right? She said yes it is. I then said well the offer says "National Co..." Before I could finish saying code the cashier cut me off and said "that's corporate and we don't do that here because corporate hasn't setup our system for that yet". As an IT Systems Administrator I don't know how a franchise can have a POS (point of sale but maybe it is the other kind too) system that doesn't utilize the same pricing/offers/codes as any other franchise within the county/state. More importantly, I'm not shopping at "corporate". It's either a franchise or an independently operated location that doesn't participate in the franchise's offerings. At the end of the day we're talking $4 off. Even if you can't honor what every other TSC between Anne Arundel and Montgomery Co MD has been able to, the attitude of "not my problem" doesn't sit well with customers who know it's not our problem either.

Interestingly enough after I ordered, I received a receipt that of course had the exact same offer I was trying to use (fill out survey for $1.99 smoothie with food purchase). I showed it to the cashier and she said yes "corporate has it printed on the receipts even though we can't honor it". That's just asinine. I figured I would just fill out the survey for this visit at this location and not publicly review the terrible experience. However, I just tried to fill out the survey from my visit to this location and not so surprisingly the receipt does not include the store location number (MD_ _ _) which is required to fill out the survey. Considering the taste of the smoothies we had didn't taste anything like what I was used to (my wife and I had different smoothies both of which I've had at other locations) and all of the other reports of poor customer service and not honoring coupons, this location just sounds like a...

Ironically after reading these NUMEROUS upon NUMEROUS low reviews regarding the managers poor work behavior, I am happy to find out I'm not alone in my view of her. There are MORE complaints on the management than anything else under the google reviews (read for yourself).

Today, I entered the restaurant and the manager never greeted me...just asked me "are you here for pick up?", hated me (she stupidly has self-hatred issues) from the time I entered the store because I watched how she greeted ever customer, except for me...but I ignored it. I mentioned to her "I want to purchase the wrap with egg and chicken, but I don't know the name." She immediately turned around and pointed to the menu posted up on the wall, next walked away, and processed to clean the tabletops behind the counter. I politely said, "I have vision problems/impairments and I cannot see the menu." She rudely and quickly with an ugly face handed me a folded menu, again I politely stated to the older woman "maam I told you I can't see the menu, I have problems with my vision, I can't read it." She acted incompetent and unintelligent. I am a business owner, its professionally good customer services with mannerism if a customer is not familiar with a product, they also mentioned they have a disability, then she should use her brain by accommodating them more, describe the different wraps based on my product description information I gave her, and tell me the available selections of wraps to buy (was called Southwestern Wrap). Respectfully value the customers business, otherwise find another job Instead, this mean, hateful, aggressive, harsh/rough, black woman with a bad attitude was soooo nasty, unprofessional, and rude.

Minutes later after I returned to my car, I called to speak to another manager, the bad black attitude woman hung up the phone prior to saying" don't call this phone anymore!!" So now I am considering reporting this incident to other...

I was so disappointed in the service received at this location! My partner and I entered with my service animal whom I was carrying as we had not expected to make any stops going into a store. I would have been completely comfortable with being asked the question allowed: is that a service animal? but instead, upon entering no one greeted us and two young women (employees) stared at us. A few moments later a large African American gentleman came out aggressively demanding we leave unless we have paperwork for the dog. Now normally, I would speak up and say this is a service animal and gladly provide proof but because I was not in the best health mentally and emotionally (per family circumstances and loss) I just decided it wasn’t worth it. My partner turned to me to ask me what I wanted and before I could answer and exit with the animal, the gentleman continued yelling at us. It was so unnecessary because we had barely been able to get a word in and the was nothing aggressive in our body language or tone. I then told my partner to go ahead and order and that I no longer felt comfortable ordering from there. What made the experience so terrible is that although my partner and I have aged well we are mid 30s with respectable careers and felt stereotyped as women of color and as a lesbian couple. There was absolutely no need for a man of that size to feel the need to speak in such a manner to two women. While we were leaving I turned to simply tell the manager that perhaps next time he should approach the conversation differently, speak respectfully, and allow people a moment to speak but he showed us that he had no respect for us by walking to the back and demanding the staff to walk to the back as well as if to say they are not worth listening to or speaking to as customers. It was horrific to experience this discrimination. I will absolutely be reaching out to corporate because the number of similar complaints and...