Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in South Carolina

If I could give this Tropical Smoothie Cafe 0 stars, I would. This location specifically, is one of the worst Tropical Cafes I have ever been to. It seems like everytime I come here something is always wrong. For one, they are extremely slow. I would say maybe it’s because they’re understaffed which would’ve been more understandable but, they’re not! I noticed the employees at this location just don’t move with any sense of direction or urgency at all & that goes for inside service as well as drive thru. Secondly, the smoothies are never made correctly and taste like nothing. I’m not sure if they’re rushing the blending process or whatever the case is… but I’m always served my smoothie with large chunks of fruits and ice. I have to wait for it to melt to be able to enjoy it and when it does melt down some, it’s not enjoyable anyways because by that point it just taste like water. Absolutely no flavor. I never have this problem with the other tropical smoothie cafes. Even the ones in other states when I travel. ONLY this location in particular sucks. Not to mention if you try and call them for anything like an issue or needing help with something, the phone lines for this store only are disconnected and don’t work. I have tried to call and also email the corporate office to express my concerns about this location but no one has gotten back to me. Mind you this was months ago…. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is great & I love their smoothies and food, I’ve been a customer for years but this store in particular needs an entire new staff. Especially management. What really sucks is this location is in such a convenient spot but sadly I would not recommend going here to anyone. Save yourselves the headache & just avoid this one. The other ones...

Today I had a long day at work and I was pretty sweaty to be honest and wanted a smoothie and something to eat, I chose to pick this place because I never tried it before! I was greeted by a young girl with pins on her hat which I found amazing because I don’t see that now and days but anyways!!! It was pretty slow and no one beside the girl in pins said “Heeelllllooooo” with a smile! I started my order on two different smoothies which was a mango one and blueberry one, but then she paused me and asked me if I would like a ice water since I was sweaty, I replied to be honest with you “I NEED WATER” as a joke, She smiled at that and went to go get me water and came back to continue my order which I got a chicken chipotle flatbread for my meal, it was a bit to pricey but I paid for it and with a smile she said “everything will be out shortly” she made the smoothies while the cook made my food. I sat at the bar to see what’s going on and man she was so fast with the smoothie and made sure they where not to icy and not to watery but just right for me. Once I got everything she said “if there’s anything wrong lemme know I got ya” and went on cleaning. I told her I’ll be back for sure and I will be getting the same smoothies, just hope she has better people to work with or someone needs to talk to them about it or being on their phones!

BTW The girl with the pins name is Ashley! Yall she ask for her to make y’all’s smoothies because...

Personally didn’t have an “issue” with my experience at this location. However with this location having a drive-through, there with someone waiting at least 15 minutes with no acknowledgment ahead of me, as soon as they drove away I was immediately helped at the drive-through. I was personally able to wave down the person who had gotten fed up with waiting and let them know that I was finally being helped so they then got back in line right behind me. (you’re welcome, tropical) When I got to the window I asked to speak with a manager. I come to find out that the manager is actually the one who had the headset on and somehow managed to not acknowledge and or not see the guest that had been waiting in the drive-through for +15 minutes(Please keep in mind there was no line and not one guest inside). I encourage the manager to do the right thing and take care of the guests smoothie, especially because it’s maybe seven dollars total. He continued to get snide and arrogant and says that he “always does the right thing” and that’s a decision that he will make “if he deems it necessary”. I think it’s really interesting how bold a manager of a drive-through can be when all I was trying to do was help him salvage the business that he almost just sacrificed by not paying attention to his own job. Maybe rethink your management team...