Tropical Smoothie Cafe

The only problem I have at this location is seeing how the manager treats her employees. Every time I go in to order, I see her sitting outside in her car or in the back “working on something” while her 2 employees are up front on the register, making drinks and working the oven. I waited in line for 8 minutes today before being helped. Mind you it was Noon and only one other customer was inside. Both workers were busy making food and drinks. The manager comes in from outside (in her car) and walks past me, no greeting. Minutes later the gentleman who was making a few online drink orders comes over to help take my order. You could tell he was angry/upset that he was doing all the work and not getting any support from his manager. While I waited 8 minutes to place my order/have someone help me, two more online orders came through the system. Meaning now they were going to work on those orders first before taking mine (because I was still waiting in line). After placing the order, the two workers are still very busy, as more customers start to come in for the lunch rush. The manager finally comes to the front and looks around. Makes one comment and then goes to the back. Moments later she states to the two employees that she’s about to take her lunch break and will be back soon. Both of the employees were frustrated. I hope this reaches the right audience as it’s a great place to eat, however there’s some managerial concerns that needs to be addressed as this has been observed on more than 3 separate visits

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 4

Service: 3

Ali at the Riverview location on 301 provides the BEST service.I’m a regular at the Riverview location and Ali brings my smoothie out to my car, it’s the WOW factor. You really should think about making Ali a manager.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Good experience Good smoothies

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Came two separate times and had horrible experience. It smelled of cigarettes in the place and my chicken wasn’t cooked all the way in my wrap. Cold & disgusting. Employees not doing their job sitting there taking forever to make my order hiding in the back and the boss nowhere to be found to correct this behavior. Don’t get me started on the nasty black water being on the floors and dirty blenders. I won’t be coming back.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Quick service great tasting food & smoothie

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Friendly staff and good food

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Date of incident: Monday, July 14 2025

This location closes at 9pm and the other night I walked in at 8:40 to get my wife and I a couple smoothies. (Mango magic and detox island green). I promptly apologized for being a little late expecting to be accepted and the staff all just looked at me and told me yeah I was being rude for showing up when I did. And continued to complain the entire time they made the smoothies. A whopping 10 minutes. Which wouldn't warrant this review to me until the smoothies came out and I got to the house.. they was a white gunk in my detox island green that I’m sure was out there in purpose judging by the giggles coming from the staff making it. I took one sip and opened it up to find what’s in the picture. I’m gonna do whatever in my power to make sure none of my friends and family come to this place.

Side note: check the time in my screenshot. I live 13 minutes away from this location and I was at home taking this picture at 9:05.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Order online said it would be ready at 3:39 got there at 3:38. Lady at the register ask me my name’ she looked back at the receipts on the table and told me it wasn’t ready yet. Little did I know my smoothie was sitting one foot to the right of the receipt and was ready. Anyways I sat there waiting for about another 20 minutes, I just asked for a refund and the girl making the smoothies ask me my name and she said your smoothie has been ready.I’m not sure which employees fault it was, but it was a big waste of my time and I didn’t want a smoothie that was just sitting there for 30mins.

Atmosphere: 3

Service: 1

I love tropical smoothie I go to the mall around the East Coast cause I do a lot of traveling working

Fresh, Friendly, & Flavorful🌴

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Placed an order for two smoothies and paid for delivery just for the store workers to give the delivery driver the wrong order then tell me I can come pick up my order since it’s still at store. This is after paying a premium for delivery. They then said they can’t refund my delivery and that I have to go through the delivery service for the error they acknowledge they made. I will no longer be a customer of Tropical smoothie and I’ve been buying from them since 2005.

They didn’t even have management on duty and saints have to wait next day for a solution or come and pickup my delivery order.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Smoothies are always on time and fresh!

Got a wrap this Friday and my chicken was ice cold. Guess I came on a bad day because I've never had this problem with the tropical smoothie in Brandon. Service took too long and the atmosphere is chaotic. Manager doesn't know how to run business and I'll gladly drive 25 to go to the next tropical smoothie.

Ordered a Baja chicken wrap with avocado on it and avocado only came on 1/2 of the wrap with very little , rice taste watery and the chicken taste like freezer burn

4/27 @ 2:15pm.
The owner really needs to retrain their staff.
They behave unprofessionally, yelling, laughing, not practicing food safety when handling foods. I watch as they handled money and food without washing their hands. Disgusting!!
This may be our last time attending. When they initially started here, it was different.