I hesitate to call this place an outright scam but the one time we came here, we could tell they didn't add any protein powder into the smoothie and it was a disappointment.
My wife really wanted a smoothie from Smoothie King, since the last time she went to one it was amazing. So she just had one from a different location not too long before we went to this spot. As soon as she took a sip she said "they did not add any protein to this at all", and it was important to her since she was healing from post op surgery and was told to give protein powder a try to maybe heal faster (I don't know if that's true but if you pay for something you should receive it), I took a sip and could basically taste only mixed mango and some ice, that was it. Maybe a TINY bit of powder, but I've had enough protein shakes in my life to know they basically added nothing (if nothing at all). I looked at my wife In the car and said "I think we just got ripped off for 8 or 9 bucks", I looked at the smoothie king locations on my phone and saw one in Rockford not too far away, then noticed all the negative reviews for this Crystal Parkway location compared to the positive reviews at the Rockford one.
This was after a very long and disappointing day driving to Chicago for basically nothing, so this Smoothie King kind of screwing us was the end to a really crappy day, that's why I remember it even though this happened over a month ago now.
I saw this location we had visited in my Yelp visits and decided to finally write our experience, I feel bad that other people may have gone here and gotten ripped off too in that time, but hopefully this will help someone.
I remember when we went there it was the older lady, probably the mother (it seems their family must work in this Smoothie King and the Wing Stop next door) that we initially spoke to and asked questions to, but she didn't seem to speak English (I understand since English wasn't my wife's first language either) so the woman in the back with a headset who I assumed was her daughter/manager came to the front and answered some questions we had.
All my wife said to the Manager woman was "I am just looking for a Mango smoothie that has the protein powder mix in it", and they gave suggestions, so we ordered and then they did their smoothie mixing in the back where no one can see it happen, which I guess is not the norm at Smoothie King's since at other locations you can see them mix and blend your drink for you so you know what is going into it.
I thought it was a bit odd they did everything in the back after my wife made a comment on it, since you can't see what they're doing.
Just go to the Rockford location, my wife stopped there like a few days after when she was in the area for work and told me after "Wow! Their smoothies are so much better at that place! They actually put in the powder they're supposed to mix and we got screwed before." Or it was close to that, I told her when I got around to it I would write my negative review, which I hate doing. I really don't like writing bad reviews because I know it can hurt a business. Usually it's just negligence or laziness.
I figure I'll give it a 2 star just so I don't totally screw their ratings. It's possible things have changed in the month+ since we visited, but I doubt it. read more