Tropical Smoothie Cafe — Restaurant in Virginia

First time at this location, and sadly, it may be my last. Service was good-ish. Attentive employee who we were greeted by nicely and politely. There was a scribbled sign on the door that said no bowls, only smoothies. Okay, fine, we were only there for the smoothies.

While our (my son's first time at this location) order was taken, the worker began making our drinks. While waiting, and observing the service area and sitting area, the whole "ick" feeling came over me. If I followed the counter where I placed my order, over to the wall that stretches to the ceiling to my left, it looks dirty. And not just dirt, like a smoothie that was being made exploded and decorated the wall and was poorly wiped down. However, by the looks of it, perhaps this occurred 2 years ago and has been left ever since.

Scanning the station area beyond the counter where I was standing and a shelf just above floor level had individual bags of potato chips. This shelf had crumbs all around it. Looking at the floor, following it around, all the nooks and crannies were no better.

Looking over the chest high counter I could see where the blenders are washed in a sink basin. I don't think this sink has seen bleach in a few days. After the blender is rinsed in the sink, they're placed upside down on a drying mat until the next order. Under the drying mat, it appeared dirty, as if it hadn't been moved and cleaned under in a while.

Lastly, when the employee was pumping a liquid into the blender for our drinks, the force of the pump created a splashback on my son and I. I'm assuming it's probably a simple syrup that gets put into the drinks. Regardless, it's no wonder the counter was sticky as it's getting sprayed with every smoothie that is being made.

This establishment could keep a fresh look that's clean, and inviting just by applying some elbow grease and integrity around their workspace. The condiment counter under the menus didn't look much better. The garbage can was also overflowing with straw wrappers. I pushed them all down with my cup / trash when we were finished and leaving.

There was some chatter from possibly 2 other employees in the back that were out of eyesight, and the girl that was taking care of us. The lack of cleanliness was evident, and frankly quite gross. The employees / store needs to take ownership and clean this place from top to bottom. A cleaning schedule that is...

My family and I walked in to the Tropical Smoothie off West Broad near Short Pump on Sunday 3/28/21 at about 3:15 pm. There were five of us, and one other customer in the store. A man entered after making 7. One of the employees, Jasmine, I believe, was dealing with a complaint from the man who entered after us. When she walked away from him she began to get rude with my family about there being too many of us in the store. At that point the first customer was leaving, now making 6. She should have asked the man after us to wait outside, but instead she continued to speak to us with a very rude tone demanding that we separate and wait outside. Three of my family include young children, so not only was her tone presented to my husband and I, but also towards my children. She was obviously angry about the man’s complaint and taking it out on us. In my opinion, with customer service experience for the last twenty years, this woman’s behavior toward my family and the gentleman after us, should be grounds for termination. Her customer service skills are nonexistent, unless you count seriously rude/horrible. Obviously, there are many other, more polite/mature ways that she could have handled the situation. We will not go back! I had to give one star in order to post this. Otherwise, I...

This place was utterly disgusting. None of the three people working there made eye contact or any attempt to be friendly. The guy who took our order mumbled responses. I didn't really look around until after we ordered but unfortunately don't feel comfortable drinking this smoothie after seeing the unclean state of this restaurant. There were dirty cups with spoons and straws stacked in a clear container close to the register, along with another container of dirty scoops. Everywhere I looked behind the counter was nasty and unkempt. I can only imagine what the back looked like or how low the cleanliness standards are. I will not be stepping foot into this location again unless it has an overall and comes under new management as I see in previous records that this seems to be "normal" here. It's mind-blowing to see the number of negative reviews all with copy and paste style responses stating how "sorry they are to have not met expectations" and a link to please tell them more. Given the consistency in these types of experiences and the amount of time this has been going on, it's hard not to believe that this generic response is just a PC attempt to validate a bad customer experience in the hope that maybe they will come back without the restaurant making any attempt at...