Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Oak Ridge

The food here is outstanding; other details...not so much. I ordered dine-in and got the Chipotle Chicken Club, a Kale and Apple slaw side dish, and an Acai Berry smoothie all wonderful. If you are wanting to keep your figure, this is not the place, though. Sandwiches average about 700 calories, and smoothies average about 500 calories.

It's unclear where at the counter one places an order. I stood at the front of the counter for a couple minutes before one of the staff motioned me over to the side counter. A simple"order here" sign would be helpful. When I received my food, there was no fork to eat the salad with and none were available behind the counter. Also, the straws are almost impossible to open--hard to tear and fitted so tight they don't slide off. Goodness, spend an extra penny for a user friendly straw!

All that said, I will probably come back to this location, but this time...

The trend of fast food restaurants having minimal staff to operate is getting ridiculous. We waited for 30 min to get 2 smoothies and 2 sandwiches. There were two people working the day we went in and 17 people waiting for orders. This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't fault the employees at all because they were doing their best and what they could with that they had to work with. The management or owner of this location utterly sucks at their job though. How do you suck this bad at hiring and then decide it's a good idea to open with 2 employees on the schedule to run the whole restaurant. I hope they can get their stuff together before this...

Care. The care that goes into their job here is remarkable, TSC is always my wife’s goto spot when shes having a bad day and needs a smile not just for the food but the quality of service. Ethan runs a great team here and yes there is the occasional mistake made on the order (but we all make mistakes!) and though mistake may not be his fault Ethan goes above and beyond to fix it when he can. Thank you Ethan for the job you do and a special Thank You to Kayden for the kind words you wrote on the bag for my wife she loved...