Recently I was sent some gift cards from a PR firm to check out a “fall only” item at Juice It Up called Pumpkin Pleasers. It’s a seasonal item that’s only available for a limited time. The only Juice It Up in San Diego is located on campus at San Diego State University. It was difficult to find a place to park near campus since the majority of parking in this area is reserved for students and staff. I managed to snag one of the only metered parking spots and walked onto campus.
Juice It Up is located in the East Commons building on campus, pretty close to the library. It’s pretty much like a campus food court in here.
Here’s a bit of a closer look at the menu. Juice It Up has juice, frozen yogurt, fruit bowls, and smoothie options. With the Pumpkin Pleaser you have a choice of getting it as a smoothie or as a smoothie bowl. I figured I’d try out the Pumpkin Pleaser Smoothie Bowl.
The only hitch in my plan was that this location would NOT accept the gift card I had received. The girl working there said they didn’t accept gift cards because they are a franchise location. This made zero sense to me. I grumbled about it but ended up handing her $7 for the smoothie bowl.
I received the Pumpkin Pleaser Smoothie Bowl [$7] a few minutes later. I asked if they had any lids and the girl sheepishly told me they didn’t. The edge of the smoothie was dripping out but there wasn’t much I could do except grab a few napkins and hope for the best. I was able to snag a table outside to snap a few photos and dig into my smoothie bowl.
The Pumpkin Pleaser Smoothie Bowl is made with soy milk, ice, yogurt, banana, pumpkin spice pie mix, organic pumpkin flax granola, graham cracker crumbs, whipped cream, cinnamon, and is topped with a graham cracker stick. On their website they suggest you to use the graham cracker stick as your spoon but… no. I’ll use a real spoon, thanks.
I quite enjoyed the crunchy bits of pumpkin flax granola in the bowl – it gave it a nice crunch and a good texture. I actually tasted the banana more than I tasted the pumpkin while I was eating this. The pumpkin flavor is quite light. The graham cracker stick quickly became a soggy mess on the end that was stuck into the bowl and so I didn’t enjoy that. It was really more for decoration.
This smoothie bowl was just okay in my opinion. I wasn’t wowed by it and I certainly didn’t think it was worth the trouble of going onto SDSU campus to get one. Considering this is the only Juice It Up location in San Diego it’s hard for me to recommend it because it’s troublesome to get to this location. It’s great for students but not really for the rest of us. I was invited to try this out but since they didn’t accept my gift card I felt like this was a failed and annoying outing. Oh well.
Juice It Up
5200 Campanile Ave. , East Commons Bldg
San Diego, CA 92182
(619) 594-0413
Well now, what a total crap experience. I think you should notify the PR people to let them know the coupon they sent you wasn’t even accepted. You should actually be compensated for the time you took to get there, to pay for parking and the inconvenience of having to pay for something you thought would be paid for the giftcards. I know it’s only $7 but still, this is pretty bad on their part. And that is the only location in SD as well? That bites. Fail for this one for sure.
Hi CC – I did notify them (immediately) but they just offered an apology and said they had no idea the location wouldn’t accept the gift card. It was an overall annoying experience and I’m sad the smoothie bowl didn’t turn out to be more amazing than it was. I’ll just chalk it up as an “interesting” experience.
That’s good you let them know, but what a bummer. I don’t blame you for being annoyed by this.
You still have way more positive experiences than negative. 🙂