Tropical Smokehouse — Restaurant in West Palm Beach

The experience here was absolutely horrendous. When we walked in, we were immediately instructed to scan a QR code—a bad start for a place that serves old-school food. Once we got to the table, I asked for a menu, which was brought to me, and the gentleman gave us some food options and recommendations. However, there is absolutely no service at this place, and it was extremely irritating, unwelcoming and disappointing. They made me get up from the table walk to the cash register to place my order instead of having the waiter take my order, then I had to pay in advance, and they asked me for a tip when I received nothing. Is it too much work to provide me with as little as a menu? The girl at the cash register who took my payment was so distracted, chatting and looking at Instagram reels with the other coworker, that I stood there for an extra five minutes, waiting for her to finish the transaction. I had to get another staff member to get her attention so she could finish the transaction so I could go back to my table. Finally, I was able to go back to my table, and barely 2 minutes after I sat down the food arrived, almost as if they had the food just waiting for someone to order it, and it was definitely not prepared fresh for us; the meat did fall off the bone, but it looked really old and disgusting, and there was no flavor. It seemed like it had just been sitting there for way too long. They also didn’t have any other customers. Not even utensils were brought to us. The ribs were dry and tasteless with no barbecue sauce. I had to get up again to go to the barbecue sauce bar, which was messy and inefficient, resulting in a half empty barbecue sauce dispenser squirting grease all over my hand, and of course, they didn’t even have the hygiene to provide napkins. This place was soo garbage. My friend ordered a brisket. I ordered a full rack of ribs. I was really shocked and disappointed by how dry and bland the food was after receiving such crappy service and being asked for a tip in advance after I did all of the work. This place is so far-fetched. It’s a joke. This new age idea of making your customers scan QR codes and forcing people to provide personal information while not providing any sort of service or experience for people is just stupid, and businesses that practice these types of principles are doomed for failure imo. This place was a total disappointment. We ended up going down the street to another steakhouse, which provided us with an amazing service. I highly recommend checking out the other options in the area, as these people don’t appreciate their customers and they have no love for their work. They simply slap meat in an oven at the right temperature until it falls off the bone and act as if they entitled to a good review and a tip. Also when I cancelled the order the manager was devastatingly rude, almost as if I was not the first person who had a bad experience there. She also accused me of eating the food to return it when I didn’t even take more than one bite of that disgusting looking food product they served. I had to point to show her the sub par untouched food before she agreed to cancel. Just an all around bad experience, with poor service and no intention of making customers actually happy. This place is bad. Don’t come here. Oh yea, they also serve DOG FOOD on the same menu. That’s right actual dog food. I’m not exaggerating. THEY SERVE FOOD FOR DOGS ON THE MAIN MENU. They ought to...

I was really excited to try out Tropical Smokehouse and chose this location to have my final "special" meal on the last night of my trip to West Palm Beach. I read all of the online reviews and this place sounded amazing so I decided to go during happy hour and try a bunch of their menu items. I arrived at the restaurant two minutes before happy hour ended and placed an order at the bar. By the time the bartender rang me up it was one minute past happy hour, so she had to get the manager to ring up the discount.

Clearly by mistake, the manager added the discounts for only two of my three happy hour items. When I pointed out the error to the bartender and told her I didn't receive a discount for one of the items she looked at the receipt and adamantly said, “Yes you did.” and abruptly walked away from me.

After carefully reviewing the receipt for a second time (since the bartender made me second-guess myself) I confirmed the third item was not discounted and asked her to point out where the discount was notated on the receipt. She then replied, "Well you got here one minute late." I responded that that wasn't fair, especially considering I arrived before 6:30pm and she already honored the discount for me. She ended up fixing the error but was unapologetic and gave me an attitude. She clearly could care less. This upset me so much so that I decided to cancel my entire order which was over $30.

I spoke with the manager and informed him his bartender's customer service skills needed a lot of work. It's a shame, because I really wanted to try the food at this place, but due to the bartender's horrible attitude I will never come back here. Hopefully, the manager gives her some serious re-training and explains to her to be overly nice and respectful to customers.

Update: I spoke with the chef/owner, Rick, and he was very understanding and apologetic for the experience I had. He even gave me his personal number. I appreciated him listening to me and trying to make things better.

Will, I return to Tropical Smokehouse? Possibly, but the bartender's attitude definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and no matter how good your food may be, bad customer service has consequences. It's saddening because I really have a feeling the food here is good. I also liked the fact they have homemade dog treats. Unfortunately, I don't want to see the bartender after what happened and make things awkward. Hopefully, she learns that being rude to customers:

1.) Affects her tips (less take home income) 2.) Could cause the business an immediate loss of revenue (e.g., upset customer cancels order). 3.) Could cause the business a permanent long-term loss of revenue (e.g., angry customer never returns). 4.) Could cause the business substantial loss of revenue (e.g., angry customer shares experience with others, word spreads, and others avoid eating at establishment)...possibly resulting in major financial loss, establishment shutting down, and bartender and other employee losing jobs. 5.) Bartender could also be fired by management after receiving enough complaints, resulting in loss of job AND bad references (possibly making future employment more difficult).

The restaurant business is and always will be a service based industry. Hiring employees that don't exhibit good customer service skills will eventually ruin your...

As I read all of these wonderful reviews I have to ask if we went to the same restaurant or if these are friends of the owner. First of all when we sate down I asked to order a drink for my wife and I and I was told I had to go to the bar and order myself, which is what I did. Thereafter we wanted to order appetizers and was instructed to use a QR code to pull up the menu (Great Idea in these pandemic times) however to issue arises in that you have to now download an app and fill in your personal information and credit card information or you will not be able to place an order. After deciding what you want you are immediately charged and forced to pay minimum 18 % gratuity even though at this point I have not received any service from the wait staff. So where this model fails is in the event that they are out of something or you do not like it you must now be sure to find the manager to and ask for a refund as that option was not offered to us. In our particular case the first thing I ordered never arrived at our table as they were out. At no point was I offered a refund and I assumed they simply did a charge back because they new they were out. Not the case and I tried calling the following day to get the charge reversed but it is strictly an automated system so I had to drive over to the restaurant the following day and ask for a refund which hopefully will happen as I have yet to receive an e-mail stating it has gone through. As for the food, I ordered hot dog (which had a slice of cheese and a bit of shredded brisket on it wrapped in a flour tortilla) for a cost of $16 including tax and forced tip and there were zero sides not even a bit of coleslaw. Lets not get started of the fish dip and I wont go into the rest of the meals as this post is getting to long. I must say my wife and I have been in the business and our minimum tip is 20% to 35% depending on the service and this case there was zero service other then a food runner and a having my water glass filled. The entire process was clunky and ill-conceived in my humble opinion and I do not think the concept will stand the local community. With the amount of quality restaurants in WPB and surrounding areas they will need to make significant changes to be successful. I now this may sound like sour grapes but that is not the case and I truly wish that we had a different experience as I was excited to see what seemed to be a great BQ...