Aren’t Smoothies Supposed to be Smooth?

Baby when I tell you this smoothie from a little juice bar in Beverly Hills had me chomping, it had me chomping!

If I wanted a treat that was part smoothie and part whole nuts, I would’ve ordered a smoothie bowl. And even when I order a smoothie bowl, I expect the smoothie part of it to be smooth.

I should’ve gone with my first mind and walked out when the lady at the cash register lacked customer service skills.

Let me tell you what happened..

I’m on a beautiful midday walk on this lovely day of the Lord, taking an aimless stroll around Beverly Hills when I came upon a sidewalk sign advertising rich, healthy beverages and snacks.

Maybe it was healthy, but it sure wasn’t rich.

After standing on the sidewalk in front of Juice Crafters Beverly Hills for a moment, looking over their “flavorful favorites” (or whatever sales-y lie was typed on the sign), I decided to go in. There was one guest in front of me and when that person stepped to the side to await his order, I stepped up to the register. The young lady behind the register stared at me with a stale face without saying a word. I said, “hi!” with my natural soft-smile disposition. She did one of those almost-grins that white men give when they don’t want to greet you but feel that they must.

I greeted the cashier again, this time with a two syllable salutation, “hello!”. This time she raised her right hand and did a jerky wave while keeping her lips sternly sealed, followed by a long blink.

My head went back in confusion in conjunction with that kind of quick triple-blink your eyes do when they’re trying to make sure they’re seeing correctly.

“Oh.. you’re not one to use words? You don’t care for using words,” I said with a playful grin and sarcasm, to which she responded, “I said ‘hey’ when you walked up, you just didn’t hear me.”

Hm. I mean I did still have my headphones in (though not much sound was coming out of them) and there was music playing over the store’s sound system, but I don’t know… I doubt a “huah” [H sound] came out of that girl’s mouth, let alone a whole “huah-aay” [hey]. And what type of customer-facing associate only says “hey” when a customer approaches a POS anyway?!

“Hey, any questions about the menu?”

“What can I get for you today?”

“Hi, welcome in!”

Or, the age-old, “hello, how are you?” would’ve worked. Even if she did speak under her breath, a full sentence would’ve been harder to miss.

Child, I paused and thought about turning around and walking out, because why should I spend my hard-earned money at a business that puts money in your pocket and you can’t even be pleasant?!

I decided to let it slide and placed my order, a 16-ounce of their “Wake Me Up” smoothie featuring almond milk, cold brewed coffee, banana, cacao powder, almonds, almond butter, dates, vanilla, cinnamon and chaga. Sounds delicious and nutritious, right?!

Tuh.

While I waited for my order to come up, I thought to myself, “this smoothie is about to be so good, I’ll forget the customer service was terrible.”

Why did I tell myself that? I think that made it worse.

One of the lil’ fellas that was back there making smoothies came out from around the bar and brought me mine where I was sitting on the window seal. Now that right there was nice, how at luxury retail stores they walk from behind the register and hand you your thousand-dollar jeans.

I walk out of the establishment, feeling positive, then take a sip…

Mm mn.

Well, I tried to take a sip, but the moment I sucked, something was blocking the other end of the straw, no matter how much I kept stirring it around and blowing out the blockage.

I continued along my Beverly Hills stroll, giving Juice Crafter’s smoothie the benefit of the doubt.. maybe I just needed to wiggle the cup around some more.

As I continued to struggle sips of the smoothie up my straw, I walked and looked toward the sky and appreciated the palm trees and the sun shining on them and on me, and sent my mind to parts of my body that felt aches from my first workout in a while day-before-yesterday, and listened to my TED Radio Hour podcast about the importance of moving the human body and felt gratitude for being able to move mine (and having always had a natural inclination to do so).

Then my mind’s eye came back to this unpleasant smoothie in my hand coming back up to my face. “Ain’t no way,” I thought. I took the lid off of the cup and realized I indeed wasn’t tripping; this smoothie had been the furthest thing from smooth!

But by this time, I was at the bottom of the cup and blocks away from Juice Crafters Beverly Hills.

I want my 12 bucks back. [inserts side-eye emoji] I could’ve taken that 12 bucks and bought something from Urth Café where I’ve never been done dirty. And this right here is why people stick to what they know, who wants to waste money?!

How are you going to be a higher end smoothie bar in Beverly Hills with low-end products and service?!

The smoothie at Juice Crafters Beverly Hills was NOT rich, was NOT smooth, and was NOT good to the taste. That smoothie at Juice Crafters Beverly Hills was chalk full of ice, making it taste watery, and the real ingredients that were in there weren’t even fully-blended. Look at the picture, zoom in, you can see whole almonds, solid pieces of dates, as well as chunks of ice. And I don’t mean a few fragments, I mean almost a quarter of the cup (and that was after I’d already been chewing and chomping pieces the whole time I was forcing solids thru the straw). It was really a cup of blended ice with superfood ingredients sprinkled in for color.

Girl, that blew me. If I wanted that experience, I could’ve put my lips around a pipe, stuck it in a pond and started sucking!

Before you pay for a smoothie, ask them to see their product or something (what they’re actually making, not what’s on a pretty picture). We can’t keep letting these smoothie bars (and other businesses) get over, charging high dollars for low quality.