Natalie Santiago is a first-year
from Chicago.
So I just started going to the new smoothie bar at the Lilly Center.
I didn’t know what to expect other than wanting my smoothie to taste like Jamba Juice. The first thing I noticed when I got there was the long lines of students before their 12:30 classes and automatically I thought “Okay that’s a good sign.” For those of you that have not yet been there, you order your smoothie first, then you walk around to the cash register, pay and punch your card if you have one and then they place your cup on the shelf. I feel like a way to improve their system would be to get more registers, more blenders, more workers or all of the above.
There are always plenty of people stocked at the new smoothie bar and they would benefit from having more cash registers where more than one worker can be at a time. Sometimes the cups get out of order in the process of figuring them out and you can end up waiting a really long time for your order. If they really wanted to get fancy they could get a conveyor belt that would just move them one down the line and scan them as they go. This saves time, would improve how quick the lines move, keep everything in order and make the lives of the ladies working a lot easier.
The blenders work really fast and your smoothies always get a really nice crunch from the ice and an on-point creamy texture. It’s a calm atmosphere of people circled with friends just patiently waiting for their orders. The space between the cash register and the railing is so narrow however, that it often becomes clustered and and can feel a little claustrophobic. They should utilize the space they have and make it bigger, or add more lounging chairs so students can wait more comfortably.
Because there are so many people waiting in line to get smoothies, you should probably leave 10-15 minutes before you actually had planned on going. Then again I can only speak for noon on MWF’s. It’s really friendly service and they always have a good recommendation if you get stuck; for example, you can’t go wrong with the Orange Dreamsicle. The thing I never noticed about getting the option to pick your choices of ingredient was that I don’t know what tastes good together; my mixes always end up tart.
If they had more students working there, we would have quicker more efficient service, have more jobs available on campus and we would have a broader range of flavors. We could also use a variety of sizes because sometimes, you woke up late and missed your first class, so you want a larger than life pick-me-up because you deserve it for having such a bad day. If you go now and get a punch card, after you hit 10, you get one free. Divide it between friends and get a free one faster!