Wonders Ice Cream & Boba — Restaurant in Saint Paul

My husband and I came here for the first time ever before finding out that the location in our city will be opening in 4 days. Anyway, I have been hearing/seeing the hype since they first opened and believe me, the photos looked great. We finally decided to visit today (St.Paul).

Upon arrival, there was a long line of customers waiting FOR their order and a shorter line of customers waiting TO order. The place is super small and cramped for the amount of customers that have to wait. What I noticed firstly was that the employees look super exhausted and overwhelmed (which is understandable) but no welcoming experience because of it. After placing our order we sat and waited. During this time I was able to sit there and read up extensively on the business. I learned that there were actually multiple locations open/soon to be open.

From a business standpoint, you think wow; a little under 10 locations in just about 1 year. They are either doing well OR that they are biting off more than they can chew. Now I am not sure if this is a 1 owner or franchise business so here is my take on both.

Personally if they are owned by 1 person/family, I would have focused on my first location before opening more. I haven't been to the new ones as they are too far and not many good reviews but I can tell you my experience at the original location. The place isnt very clean, tables were cheaply made and dirty, the place has a window a/c unit keeping the place cool and tonight where it was 67-70 degrees, the air outside was way cooler than being inside. The fans on each side of the room were just circulating the hot air in the room. The employees didn't look very happy about being there. No one came out to clean tables. The floors were unclean, dust/stains on the walls, to me it looks like they finish their shifts so exhausted that they are not cleaning DAILY. I personally didn't know how to feel about how sanitary a Lasko fan blowing dust over where the ice cream were rolled in order to keep the employees rolling the ice cream cool would be but I guess a little dust won't kill anyone. Back to the cleanliness, I am not sure how in 1 year of operating the place can look like this. So if you're opening multiple locations I would think about hiring more employees here so that cleaning can be done daily and so your employees are overly exhausted to conserve energy and are able to apply that energy towards their customer's experience. I would have also used that money to revenovate the place which sadly isn't ideal for just 1 year of operating. The place of origin of a growing business should be the best place of all, not the worst.

If this business is ran as franchise, I would hope that the independent owners would make sure that their new locations are better than this one ALL AROUND.

I gave this business a 4 out of 5 because I know this review is my opinion and I feel like giving it a much lower one was more appropriate but I also would like to give the business the benefit of the doubt because even after waiting 1 whole hour to taste the ice cream, I would say it was worth the 1 hour wait but not a minute more (because of the OVERALL experience). I really do feel like all the con factors listed above really effected this experience poorly. I hope that the owner(s) will hear me out on this review. This review only reflects my personal experience. I do not wish any negativity on this business but only hope that my posts be considered to better their businesses and their customer's...

We recently stopped by this ice cream/boba shop with our kids and, honestly, it wasn’t the best experience. My wife and I ordered taro strawberry teas with boba, and a frozen raspberry lemonade for the kids. First off, we had to wait a while because a couple was ahead of us, which was no big deal. But it did take him like 15-20 minutes to even start on our order. He even mixed our order up and tried to give me a raspberry ice cream instead of the frozen raspberry lemonade.

When we finally got things straightened out, he told us they’re out of the taro strawberry, which was a bummer. It kinda felt like he knew all along but waited until the last minute to tell us. We picked something else, which also turned out to be out of stock as well. They only had a few drinks on the menu, and by then, i just picked anything because we had been waiting so long.

To top it off, I saw on the receipt that I got charged extra for that ice cream mix-up. I didn’t make a fuss about it, but it was annoying. And when we finally got our drinks, they didnt seem very sweet or flavorful. Very subpar. Also, the place wasn’t the cleanest, pretty dusty and a bit dirty, which makes you wonder about what goes on behind the counter.

Overall, it was a pretty disappointing visit. We were hoping for a nice family time, but it just didn’t turn...

I can see why the rest of the locations in the Twin Cities metro closed. Wonders Ice Cream used to be good: taking various ingredients, chopping them up and adding them into the rolled portions of the ice cream. They now do NOT do that and instead it's now flavored ice cream with a couple of toppings. Imagine Cold Stone or Dairy Queen changed what they did by using only flavored ice cream and then adding a few toppings. That's what Wonders has done and therefore lost its appeal to me. I was excited to have it again after a couple of years. The chocolate brownie is what I get: a brownie chopped up and added to vanilla ice cream, rolled and then topped with chocolate syrup, another brownie and a chocolate stick. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when it was just chocolate ice cream with a brownie on top. I asked the staff why they changed what they've been doing and was responded with "it's faster this way." I will not be revisiting my disappointment...