DESTIN Fla. Tropical Smoothie Café this week unveiled a more cost-effective and expanded menu to all of the 280 tropical-themed smoothie-sandwich stores.
The new menu was the culmination of an 18-month evaluation, the company said. It serves to improve cost and operational efficiencies, as well as provide customers with new choices, like a new children’s menu with combinations and such sandwiches as chicken-pesto flatbread, which had been a promotional offering in the past. Grilled flatbread sandwiches are now a permanent offering at Tropical Smoothie Cafes.
Executives also made certain that each menu ingredient now has at least two functions. For example, guacamole until now had been used only in the turkey-guacamole sandwich, but with the new menu, it is used in other items as well.
“Our customers told [us] what they loved about Tropical Smoothie Café and where we needed to improve,” Jim Valentino, president and chief operating officer for Tropical Smoothie, said in a statement. “We took that information and formed a task force including many of our strategic partners to improve our menu offerings, value-engineer costs and develop a new look.”
One of the goals was to make the menu more intuitive and easy to navigate, according to Barbara Valentino, vice president of marketing and communications.
“The look of the new menu is very enticing with mouth-watering photos of the food and vibrant, tropical colors that are the perfect fit for our concept,” she said.
Tropical Smoothie Café was founded in 1997 in Destin and is now in 34 states.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
