Back in 2016 when Smoothie King arrived in my hometown, it was the first time I ever heard of the franchise. At that time, Smoothie King had over 850 locations, but none of them were in the Pittsburgh area. The owner, Liz Szabo, realized that there was not a quality smoothie shop in the area […]

What’s a restaurant or cafe these days without an app? From Starbucks to Panera to Chipotle and more, all of these businesses in the food industry have an app for their customers. These apps appeal to the consumer preference for digitalization, and they are essentially all one in the same with some fundamental features: digital […]

At Smoothie King, part-time employees earn an hourly wage plus tips.  Tips are a kicker though. The majority of customers do not tip. This never surprised me though because I would not necessarily think of Smoothie King as a place to tip.  At ice-cream shops, the workers always have tip jars, and it seems to […]

Before I worked at Smoothie King, I would frequently look up recipes and try to make my own at home.  However, I could never quite get the consistency and taste to match that of smoothies bought at different shops.  I definitely learned some tips and tricks to the trade that could help enhance at-home smoothie […]

This past school year, I consistently worked the second-half of the day shift on Sundays.  With the delivery truck coming on Monday mornings, we were often on the verge of running out of inventory during my Sunday shift.  In particular, there were a few instances where we ran out of bananas, the most frequently used […]

From bananas to spinach to dates to carrots and more, all of these fruits and vegetables are used in the smoothies from Smoothie King.  All of the ingredients are “prepped” daily in the back of the store, and in this blog, I will describe the process for “prepping” two key fruits: bananas and strawberries.  (*Note: […]

As we are all human, people make mistakes and get mixed up.  At Smoothie King, we are on the receiving end of these mix-ups, but we also mix things up as well.  Often times, these mix-ups do not have detrimental effects and result in laughs and funny stories. At the Smoothie King that I work […]

Have you ever noticed that a restaurant seems to be in a “modified mode” in the final hours of the day?  At the end of the day, there is a lot that goes into closing the store: prepping, cleaning, doing the dishes, counting the drawers and more.  With all of the tasks that need completed […]

Last week, I broke down the menu to hopefully direct any future customers in the right direction.  However, once you get to the right category for you, there are still plenty of options. Employees are encouraged to taste the smoothies when we begin working, so we can recommend what we genuinely like and not just […]

When many customers come to Smoothie King for the first time, they seem overwhelmed, flustered, and confused.  These feelings are a result of the extensive menu. Walk-in customers survey the menu for an extensive period of time before stepping up to the counter.  Drive-thru customers take more than “just a minute” to decide. The Smoothie […]