Mango Rabbit Boba — Restaurant in Tempe

Diamond in the Rough that's fallen from Grace

They used to be really good, I found them in 2018 (back when they still had the pucks that would light up and vibrate when your order was ready), and went often enough that some of the staff knew me by name. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated since then. It's always been one of those 'wait 15 to 20 minutes for your order' places, except now it's no longer worth it.

Food - I've had consistently good experiences with the food, the waffles are standout and the chicken is pretty good, if sometimes a little on the dry or tough side. I've never felt food poisoned after eating any of it, though I have in the past noticed remnants of chocolate waffles in my vanilla ones. Anytime I go my roomate does say I smell like the restaurant, but usually that just means "waffle." Not really a place to go for the food unless you're getting the waffles.

Drinks- The themed days are very fun, and it was always neat to stop by and see the latest one, what the cookies were, etc. The main thing that inspired me to write this review was how often my orders had been wrong or incomplete lately. I drank my way through the menu and settled on a couple faves - I tend to default to the flower hashira mocktail (introduced during the demon slayer event) and sometimes everything is on it (mint, berries, fruit, edible glitter) and sometimes it is just... sparkling water and syrup. :l after ordering the same thing at the same price though, so it's really disappointing when it happens. I could send it back but then I wait another 10 minutes and the reason I started going here was that they were open late, and I feel bad doing that to the staff when I get my drink at 9:55. The drinks have been consistently good before this so it's just a shame. They are also pretty pricey and charge you extra unless you pay in cash.

Environment- All of the seating is really worn out, there are power outlets available at almost every booth but some of them are tearing out of the walls, the atmosphere used to be pretty cohesive but now it's just a frenzied cycling of printouts of art that I'm not confident they got permission to print. The booths themselves are also in abysmal shape, very split, and the chairs you wait on for drinks at the front are extremely ragged as well. The bathroom works but is also in rough shape. In a word I would say the overall vibe is neglected with maybe a touch of derelict.

Giant bear was an attraction, you could sit on it or take pics with it for a while. It developed a split along the back of its head and instead of fixing it, it's been roped off and left last I saw. I will admit that environmental vibes of places mean a lot to me so I might be docking a disproportional amount of points here.

-Staff- The staff have always been very kind and pleasant to interact with, no notes. I think they're doing their best and I always tip.

Ultimately what sparked my motivation to write this review was hearing about how they'd been failing health inspections, which I could never imagine happening in its early days, and was the final nail in the coffin for me. I loved them, but there are better places to go with more consistent drinks and more maintained...

Edit (The new owner is awesome!): Okay, so a couple of months back, I reviewed this place, and it was uh,... not an awesome experience. HOWEVER, since then, they've undergone new management, and the new owner reached out to me, informing me that they've done a complete remodel and deep clean. She even offered my friend and I free drinks and popcorn chicken in hopes of making up for our last experience. Upon walking in, I could instantly tell a difference. The place smells and looks clean, and the staff were extremely sweet! Elle was working when my friends and I came in, and she was super helpful with the overall process! She was super friendly and understanding and was fast when preparing our order! The drinks looked like how they did on the menu! We ordered the Goldmine milkshake, the Taro milk tea with boba, the tiramisu cloud milk tea, and popcorn chicken. Everything was amazing, the drinks were refreshing and not overly sweet, the chicken was tasty and flavorful! Overall, this experience was amazing, and I'm so glad the new owner gave us an opponentity to have a better experience! Will definitely be coming back! . . . Old Review (Before the new owner): First, the smell. There was this horrible odor inside, smelt like something was rotting. The place was also dirty, dust and grime everywhere, the chairs were torn and falling apart, they looked so nasty I chose to stand. I'm lactose intolerant and asked if I could get the Taro milk tea with some sort of milk substitute/get it non-dairy. They told me it was non-dairy yet had coffee creamer in it?? then they forgot my boba. They were very unclear about whether or not it was non-dairy or not. My friend and I waited around 25 minutes for a Taro milk tea and a mocktail. There were two other people in the store. The service was bad. The workers didn't seem to know what they were doing and gave very unclear "answers" (if you could call it that) about any question we had. We ordered at the counter because the order kiosks were confusing as there were multiple errors in wording or spelling. Everything was WAY overpriced, and at checkout, they didn't offer a receipt. I have never written a review anywhere ever, but this was so bad I had...

My friend and I were SUPER excited to come try out Mango Rabbit since we’ve been seeing all the Social media hype about these cool drinks. We ordered at 4:00pm on a SUPER slow Tuesday and didn’t get our drink until 4:30ish. We waited over 25 minutes to get our mermaid drink. The 2 people that ordered after us even got their drinks and finished it AND left before we even got ours.

The absolute worst part was there was that we could see the owner/manager was too focused on helping out their Instagram “influencer” friend, making sure their drinks are continuously coming out so they can take pics. While our order was completely ignored and when we asked what’s taking so long after over 20 mins and they just tell us “oh sorry” left the drink at the table and left without saying anything. The flavor of the mermaid drink was decent because it’s dragon fruit & strawberries but it was so watery and the mermaid tail was basically sinking to the bottom and we had to pull it back out to snap a quick pic. It felt more like a strawberry milk than a shake. I don’t think it was worth $9 for a strawberry milk + sinking a mermaid tail. The presentation of the drink was not there. It was sloppy made and dripping on the other side that I didn’t take a picture of. My friend and I saw how the workers basically made our drink 3 times in a row. Maybe it kept coming out wrong or too watery. We could see that they kept pouring it in and out of that same cup and the staff even poured a little cup and tried some for themselves. We were getting some what grossed out at that point.

Sadly, we wouldn’t come back again. The service was terrible and made the experience so disappointing. Influencers are definitely just hyping this place up. I wouldn’t recommend coming here. I would consider myself an avid food photographer and can make most mediocre foods look good but not with these drinks. Just know your drink wouldn’t come out like the pics you see on IG unless they know you’re an “influencer”.

Also most drinks range from $9 to $19.99 for one drink, depending on how “special”...