Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Town of Islip

The restrooms are better maintained than the entire restaurant.

This chain needs to divorce the idea of serving anything but smoothies. If you want to quickly grab a smoothie and nothing else, this is an acceptable place to go. If you want literally anything else, be prepared to wait close to an hour for your food.

My order was placed at exactly 12:34:55PM and I did not receive my food until 1:33PM. Essentially one hour it took for me to get my food. Luckily my job isn't strict about my hours otherwise I would've literally had to leave and essentially burn those $19 I spent on the Smoothie and Flatbread. I couldn't even enjoy it properly after waiting so long even though I made the order online, which, the whole purpose behind an online order IS to avoid waiting around.

There is a "Pickup Area" but they might as well put flowers and picture frames around it for decoration because that's literally all it is: a decoration. The employees keep the food behind the register rather than in the Pickup Area so you're left standing around waiting for one of the three employees to even acknowledge your presence (good luck) so that they can tell you, after you've been there half an hour, that your food is still not ready.

They did have a fourth employee but she went to lunch DURING THE LUNCH HOUR. Maybe I'm unwell for thinking this but isn't the lunch hour the exact time you want all hands on deck at an eating establishment, especially when you're incapable of serving your customers in a timely manner? Again, I could just be out of my mind for even thinking such a thing but I worked retail before and I don't remember the people in charge being this incompetent.

It should have been self-evident that the place was a dump from the parking lot. Such a massive waste of space for such a location. The amount of parking spots it holds doesn't even make sense for this place as you can't even fit that many people in the building. There are over 40 parking spots but not even 10 people can fit in the building without it being crowded and there's no way you can fit 30 adults in there. Tear the place down and put a mechanic shop there or something that's actually useful.

The only saving grace was the bathroom. There are two, single-person bathrooms that are cleaner and more welcoming than the whole restaurant. If the whole experience was just about the bathroom, I'd rate it 5/5 stars. Perfect! But the whole Tropical Smoothie Cafe experience itself is #2, if you know...

My order was to be ready at 6:04 I arrived at 6:07. In the Curbside parking spots they write in Sharpie 'If we do not come out in under 2 minutes, call us' and added the store number. I decided I would give them a bit more time and waited. After 3 minutes, at 6:10 I called the store and was told to wait on hold, I said okay and then she hung up on me. I decided it was an accident and called again, this time they hung up within seconds. The third time I called, after waiting probably 20 minutes. I explain that I am waiting and she claims she is coming outside. I wait another 10 minutes and no one comes to out car. I call a third time and explain my name order and car description. When they finally came out they gave us two smoothies, one that looked like our order and literally spilled the other smoothie on my husband since it was overly full. We asked where the food we ordered was and waited another 10 minutes to get a paper bag that the boy tried very hard to cover so we could not tell what was inside until it was in our hands. It was a wrap I did not order with chips I did not select. I paid $37 and tax and waited an extra 30 minutes to not get the food I paid for. I am NEVER wasting time with Tropical Smoothie again. And this is actually the 10th order either this location and Bay Shore has messed up. I try to be polite and patient but this is out of control. And after all that they had the nerve to not refund me. I have been waiting on hold with corporate for 30 minutes now waiting to speak...

Smoothies are great, but some of the staff needs training. Their ability to multitask properly in order to best serve customers is typically abysmal. For this reason, the wait can be very long. You can use the app, but you do not get the happy hour discount using it. Therefore, I call in my order on my way to work.

The last time I went, I arrived and my smoothie was ready and waiting. There were no other customers in the lot or building so I went to the counter and gave the young man my name and pointed to my smoothie. I just needed to pay. He was about to ring me up when the phone rang. Rather than putting them on a 30 second hold so I could scan my phone to pay, he proceeded to have a 3-4 minute conversation with the customer on the phone, taking their full $30 order and ringing it up, while I stood there in literal disbelief over his poor time management and customer service. It took all my energy not to ask him to put them on hold so we could finish our transaction and I could get to work.

This is just one example of the frustrating experiences you can expect to have here as a result of some of the staff's inability to properly multitask in order to best serve customers. If there was another place to grab a smoothie on my way to work, I would never...