Smoothie King — Restaurant in Texas

Not my first visit, but surely my last here.

The textbook reason for DIY smoothies/ blending hacks at home instead. My hubby requested a smoothie and I should've heeded to his foreboding words, “You sure you want to go to THAT location? Their reviews are horrible.” Told him that I’d been here a couple of times; AM weekends post-workouts, and never experienced an issue. Well… jinxed that one. Worst SK experience. Ever. Courtesy of that snot stained customer service delivery of Nathan “Nasty” O. Pulling up, about 3-5 mins passed before a voice made the speaker come alive. A long time in drive-thru, with no initial acknowledgment at least, and just one car ahead for payment. As I was trying to repeat my order back, the young lady cut me off and I interjected back telling her to let me finish. A pet peeve is being talked over. I was ordering a smoothie based on dietary restrictions and needed to ensure the non-dairy substitute because non-fat milk (instead of Almond) could cause a very upset stomach.

I'd muttered-‘ so maybe this is why the reviews are so low.’ Then I hear, “No reason to get an attitude.” Like what?! Who uttered that garbage? At the payment window, T. [possibly a high schooler as well] proceeded to explain to me that she was not trying to be rude on the speaker but to ensure she was hearing me right to fill my order right and all. So all good with her.

When I asked who made that tacky little accusation, NNO stuck his head towards the window for input no one asked for. This male-Karen-in-training (I should’ve just recorded all this) tried to have words as he was checked on the meaning of c-u-s-t-o-m-e-r s-e-r-v-i-c-e, a kettle trying to call the pot black & keeping his useless opinion to himself. Nothing egregious about what I’d said @ the box and T. could (and was) holding her own just fine, where we reached a mutual understanding. She even apologized for NNO stepping out of his lane with Donkey-ness. Miffed, NNO tells me to “get out of his drive-thru.” Comical. As a mature adult, I was not about to reduce myself to argue with an underdeveloped frontal lobe, seemingly senior high schooler with a rotten attitude of not really giving a D about his ‘last days on a smoothie gig.’ I.e., a case of quitting courage, emboldening him to speak to a customer that way. And no, he does not get a pass as a young adult worker. As a parent, I 100% support and enjoy being serviced by teens/ young adults in the workforce. Working in fast-food (with great managers) as a teen shaped my work ethic & who I am today in dealing with difficult/ high-strung clients. A case of privilege (yes, bc have always had decent service in not so affluent areas) and putrid behavior.

NNO’s antics didn’t end there. This Sonny Bono hair, cropped under a baseball cap, wearing weasel locked the front doors after I made a U, having told T. that I did not want him near my smoothie and was going to come inside to ensure this. T. went to grab the key to let me in and a short time later I was outta there with that...

I always come here for smoothies but recently I discovered the smoothie bowls so I took my lol with me so we could try them together. I ordered two bowls, for me the açaí coco haze and for my mom the coco colada, when I confirmed my order to the employee I just took my receipt and waited. I checked my receipt out of curiosity and saw that the employee had put the wrong bowl, instead of putting the coco colada the employee had put another coconut bowl instead, once I let her know she just said that she would let the employee that was making the bowls know so he could just make the one we really asked for. Once the employee let the other employee know he told the employee that the bowls were already made and that’s when he approached me at the order area and he said that he would just give me a refund and I just said “ok,” he asked me which bowl I wanted and I told him that I wanted the coco colada instead of the other coconut bowl and I told him that the one that I had asked for was the coco colada however he said that it wasn’t true and that he was there and heard me say something else and at this point I was just ready to go, however he did a refund and just put it toward the coco colada however he gave me the two coconut bowls and I was still missing my açaí coco haze so at that point my mom stepped up and told him that the bowls we wanted were the açaí coco haze and the coco colada, he told my mom that he had refunded me for one, (which I assume was the açaí coco haze since he gave me the coco colada and the other coconut bowl that we didn’t want, which I told him when he was doing the refund process) at that point I could see that both parties were getting stressed so I just ended up paying for my açaí coco haze. So I ended up paying for three bowls and got the one that we never wanted, the coco colada, and the açaí coco haze. At the end I could’ve told him that he got the order wrong but at that point I could see that he was getting mad at me for talking to him so I just didn’t wasn’t to cause a problem and kept my mouth shut and paid for it which in hindsight it’s a very stupid thing to do but at that moment I just wanted to be done and not cause a whole issue. I’m honestly very disappointed since I’ve had nothing but good experiences at this...

I visited this location around 1pm on 8/13/21 and it busy but the lack of organization inside was chaos. They had to remake 2 of my smoothies as they were not sure if it was made correctly. Another mans order was made wrong and it was the wrong size. I believe while I was there about 3 or 4 drinks were made but nobody knew who they went to.

Suggestions to management as they have hard workers:

-Print labels and stick on cups (similar to Starbucks) -While very busy both inside and drive-thru separate a few employees and have them turn off headset, as I believe this caused a lot of confusion and have them just focus on customers inside. train shift leaders about organization

The 5 drinks that were made were not of quality that the location typically has.

Also, a young female was getting mad at a customer because his order was wrong. She said a couple times “if you let me talk, I am telling you”. The guy wasn’t being rude but he was frustrated that his drink was taking so long and the wrong size was put into the system. The young lady was frustrated clearly but she came off very rude.

Hope the “rush hour” service gets better

Might want to have a training session where you challenge employees and shift leaders after hours and do a “rush hour” scenario with them.

I gave 3 stars this time because I frequent the location but the drinks were not great and wait was way too long. If I didn’t frequent the location, I would have...