Smoothie King — Restaurant in Mount Juliet

First let me say I have visited this Smoothie King many times before and had 5-star rated service. In fact, I will go leave a five-star review for all the times before that were fine. But we all know most people only leave reviews when they are frustrated.

I pull in behind this building to go through drive-thru. The local high school dance team is having a car wash. Two team members have to move out of the way of the drive-thru lane against the building so I can go around front and go to the other side. The other outside lane is blocked by car wash patrons and team members. Thank goodness no one is in line in the drive-thru and I can sail right thru.

I decide to park in front and go in so as not to have to deal with the drive -thru cluster. Anyone who knows this spot knows it is hard to get around. I get to the door and see the sign saying the lobby is closed for renovation. I turn back around and get back in my car.

As I approach the drive-thru both lanes are open with two team members standing in the center. A car pulls into the other lane and stops to chat with the team members before moving on to order. I pull up in the second lane and try to order. I wait till the other car leaves and for the second time ask if anyone can hear me. When I get no response I think maybe the speaker is broken.

I drive around the back and get into the drive-thru lane behind the car. When the car leaves no one is behind me and I pull up to the window. No one shows their face for two minutes. Finally I tap on the counter and say, "Excuse me. Hello?" A staffer comes to the window and I tell her what happened. She says there are two lanes, one for ordering and another for the car wash. I tell her that the team members were standing in the center and talked to someone in the other lane (the car before me in the drive-thru line). There is nothing to say the other lane is shut down. Usually there is an orange cone. The staffer says something to the effect of well, the one lane is for the drive-thru the other for the car wash. I mention that again, there needs to be a sign. She finally says I can just pull around again and she will take my order.

I am shocked. I am paraphrasing here. My really frustrated voice did not start until the thanks a lot. "You want me to pull around for the third time to get behind yet another car?" "Well, they are already in line." "I was in line." "But they have already ordered their smoothies." "You aren't going to let me order? I can't believe it. I was before both of those cars at the speaker." "But they were already in line." "I was already in line before them. Thanks a lot." And I drive away being careful not to hit the dance team members on my way out.

I worked the fast food drive through for 9 years. I would never have made someone drive around again. There are ways around that. If this staffer had been trained in customer service she would have taken my order, apologized for the confusion, and then made 100% sure the dance team members were not causing any more confusion at the drive-thru lane AND that there were signs. As a Smoothie King team staffer she should have that ability.

It could be that management does train and this young lady thought she was doing the right thing or didn't have the power to make such a decision. That is a shame. It is hard enough being a fast food employee but not being properly trained to deal with this kind of situation does not make things easier. The young lady was perfectly nice and never got snotty with me and I commend her for that.

So Smoothie King Mt. Juliet management - train your staffers on what they can do for customer service AND workout logistic, signage etc for special event days.

There, now I will go leave a higher-rated review for the times this Smoothie King...

Let me start by saying I love smoothie King and have been going there for over a decade and would never leave a poor review on a business I thought would be affected by it. We all know smoothie King is good and if one isn't it's the customer service.

The young lady at the window was very unclear about the new ingredients mix in the immune builder. She went from saying it was different to whenever I tried to switch to angel food to get the closest to the old recipe, telling me that would be nothing like it and laughing at me while I tried to understand what she was meaning in the way it was different. Ultimately I still didn't understand but was embarrassed and ordered the immune builder with a pump of mangosteen (thinking it would be strawberry banana as she said nothing was different) when I got a blueberry drink and asked her to change it to angel food and tried to explain to her I was used to immune builder with strawberry banana, she was very snarky and told me it's always had blueberry in it. Which is not true. When I was a kid the customer is supposed to be right. The customer is not supposed to be a jerk, and the employees don't argue with them and laugh at them.

All of this wouldn't be worth a novel of a Google review, but the smoothie I paid 7$ to argue with someone over was also MELTED when I got it.

This place is too expensive to get service like this. I went against what she said and ordered andelfood with mangosteen. It tasted just like the old immune builder. Too bad it was melted.

When hiring young kids (who also need work to, I don't want this girl to lose her job. I don't know what may be happening in her life) try to teach them about the old recipes so when long-time customers come in, this doesn't happen again. It's also one thing to be rude, but don't laugh at people.

I would love to change my review in the future and I'm sorry to leave a poor review but this was a very unpleasant and expensive experience. I go to smoothie King willing to pay that much because it's worth it. This is the first time it was...

I’ve never been to Smoothie King and this was my first time ordering so I used the online menu before going. I wanted the Vanilla Shredder so that’s what I ordered when I went. The employee repeated my order back to me and asked if there was anything else and I said no and he said “okay we’ll get that started for you!”

After waiting in this long line forever, I get to the window and a different employee said “did you order the blah blah blah?” and I said “no i ordered the vanilla shredder” and she just kind of stared at me a second and said “Did you order from the drive thru?” And i was like “yeahhh?” “Well, that’s not on our menu anymore. We’re not allowed to make that.” I said “interesting cause the guy repeated the order back to me”. I wasn’t mad or anything. And she yelled throughout the store “did someone put in a vanilla shredder??” And they pow wowed together and she came back to me and just kinda stared at me and huffed like she didn’t know what to do and I said super politely “Whats similar? I’ll do that!” And she ignored it or didn’t hear me and went and got an older lady. I repeated my story to her and she was a little bit rude and said the same thing. “We’re not allowed to make it anymore since it’s not on the menu” and i was like “i mean that’s fine. I used an online menu” and she said “Well, we’ll do but just so you know next time we’re not allowed to make it” and charged me for the drink.

LAAAAAAADY, it is NOT my fault. Your employee did not say that when I ordered it. Literally all you had to do was tell me he was mistaken and it’s off the menu now. And ask if you can make something else (LIKE I ALREADY ASKED). But instead it was made a HUGE deal and I was made to feel like a horrible person for ordering something I didn’t know wasn’t on the menu anymore.

I will never go there again. You shouldn’t have charged me for the drink and now I don’t even want it cause you...