Bubble Up

Love their bubble smoothies… They’re the best! Lots of combinations and they have ice cream now too. It’s delicious. Worth the wait!

bubble tea is alright/​decent but the service is unsatisfactory wouldnt let me buy one time because she thought i was buying it for a girl, i didnt understand the concept of that, i think they need a new owner. Often judges customers by the way they dress and if youre a teen, she gives you a nasty attitude.
UPDATE***threatened to sue me after i wrote this review saying that she had all of my information and refused to let me purchase a drink unless i deleted this review, i also dont know how to delete reviews

Let’s get a few things straight.
Now granted, the bubble drinks here are of okay quality and, of the orders I’ve received, I’ve been pleased with my purchase. However, I tend to order the exact same thing each time I go (small Mocha Bubble Drink at the twitching price of $ 4.25) and I’d like to say that’s not to hard to mess up.
What’s the issue I have?
INCONSISTENCY and BLATANT DISCRIMINATION.
I am a graduate of Roosevelt High school and have seen the owner’s obvious refusal of service to certain customers without reason for nearly 5 years now. Her drink quality is also determined by how much she favors the customer.
Incident #1:
My teammate and I came by her shop for drinks after school in 2012. My teammate, who is Chinese and speaks Chinese, ordered first and the owner was very animated with her and talkative, even conversing together in Chinese. After she placed the order, I walked up. I am, by appearance, a very dark White/​Hawaiian girl. The owner looked at me once and then turned to work on the blender and proceeded to ask for my order with NO EYE CONTACT. I took great patience as I am a person desiring some positive interaction. She then, again with no eye contact informed me to place $ 5 on the counter and wait on the side for my order. When I tried to confirm that she received the correct order, she snapped at me saying, «I HEARD YOU FIRST TIME. MOVE TO THE SIDE.» My teammate, who ordered the exact same thing as me, got her order 10 minutes before me and with obviously more bubbles than me. You could say I was a little put out but I looked past it, thinking maybe she was having a bad day.
Incident #2:
My then boyfriend (full White) and I, along with a few of our friends, came to her shop in 2013. I had no money so he ordered for the both of us as I waited out of view on the side. He wanted a large Oreo Bubble drink and a small Mocha Bubble drink. She asked who the Mocha was for and he said it was for his girlfriend. She then asked who the Oreo was for and he said it was for himself. Her response: «No Oreo right now. I don’t feel like making it right now. And I might be out of Mocha too.» A little irritated, we both decided not to order and waited for our friends. Our other friend ordered a large Oreo Bubble drink from her and received it with no problem.
Interesting, right?
Incident #3:
Today, August 4, 2014, I ordered a drink for myself at around 6pm and then came back about a half an hour later to order a Coconut Bubble drink for my mom. The person working there at the time I placed the Coconut order was not the owner. I saw a friend of mine behind me who asked me if I could order a Chocolate Bubble drink for her, which I was about to do. Out of nowhere, the owner pushed past me and told the person working there to stop taking my order. She got into the little shop and pointed at my friend, asking if she had taken an order from her. The employee honestly replied no. I interjected and said that I wanted to buy a Chocolate Bubble drink to which the owner replied, «No. I don’t want to make Chocolate. I don’t feel like making chocolate.» Then, pointing to my friend said:
«I will not service her.»
No reason was given.
And I almost didn’t get my Coconut Bubble drink because apparently she «didn’t want to place it outside on the ledge for me to pick up.»
The owner constantly refuses service to certain individuals she deems as not likable and backs it up with «not feeling like making said drink».
She has made a monopoly off the teens who come from Roosevelt High School because there is basically no other Bubble Drink store within miles. She is rude and discriminatory and I will not longer be bringing her any business.
Unless you are Chinese and look it too, good luck getting a quality drink at this place.
And $ 4.25 for a barely filled 16 oz? Not worth the headache.

I walked up and the lady was talking on the phone and ignored me (I was the only customer). She finished talking on the phone before asking for my order. Totally rude. She charged me $ 5 for a strawberry banana smoothie that I could have surpassed making at home on my own.

Possibly the worst place to get bubble drinks.
I ordered their strawberry and I observed them and what do you know. They use powder, frozen strawberries, and straberry syrup.
The most outragest thing was that it costed $ 5+.

The bubble drinks here are good. I like the honey dew melon and taro. The only thing is that the service here sucks! The owner lady is very rude and told my fiancé that he is no longer allowed here. Sometimes I’m in the mood for bubbles and sometimes I’m not. So one day we tried ordering 2 bubble drinks, a taro and a honey dew. Since I didn’t feel like bubbles that day, he asked her if she could simply add my bubbles into his drink. She said «no! No can do that! I have best bubbles in town, customers get mad if I run out! «my fiancé asked her why and that it would’ve been in my drink anyways and she doesn’t charge LESS if I take away the bubbles. So it all just didn’t make sense and he told her that she has horrible customer service. She then threw his money back in his face and told him that she didn’t need his $ 8 and that she has a lot of other customers anyways. I really wish she was nicer because it’s right up the road from my apartment and it’s really good bubble drinks! Oh well, not coming back to support her, she «no need money anyway».

I’m not too picky with bubble tea. My main here is the taro with pearls, which is always perfect. I’d prefer fresh ingredients, but if my sweet and chewy cravings are satisfied, I’m happy.
This place is a little pricier than others, but it’s close to where I live. I haven’t really experienced horrible customer service as others have. This place is pretty convenient because there are usually no lines, and I can order my drink, come back with lunch, and I’m good to go.

I love this place! The bubble drinks are great– the fruit ones get enhanced with fruit and the creamy ones get milk (or maybe its half and half) instead of powder base alone. The boba is soft and chewy. The staff have always been really nice and friendly to me over the years– I used to live down the street and went all the time but its been a while before today, and I’m still pleased with my «bubble shack». To clarify an earlier post from another Unilocal reviewer about expensive prices, the regular bubble drinks are $ 4.25 & $ 5.25, and its $ 1 more for a combo of more than 1 flavor.

This place made me cringe in disgust. The bubbles were tough and looked like poop balls. My watermelon «smoothie» came with bubbles i didnt ask for. The owner was rude as well. I really would not recommend coming to this place.

Since Makiki village is so close to my home (I live across the street), I’ve been coming here pretty often to grab a quick lunch before heading off. Before, I would always walk by this bubble tea stand but recently, I decided to try it out and I really liked it. To be be honest, my first bubble tea that I bought there was the mango one and it tasted pretty good. It’s just that the little bubbos at the bottom of the cup were all frozen solid so I spent half the time trying to scoop them up manually to eat since they couldn’t fit through the straw. However, I decided to try out that bubble tea a second time and ordered the taro flavored one. It turns out that I loved that flavor! Ever since then, I’ve been stopping by that little shop after lunch to get my fav taro bubble tea.

Travis is awesome and very friendly, unlike the owner of this place. It’s super expensive ($ 5.50 pushing $ 6 dollars) for bubble tea but its okay. One busy day I ordered the usual and waited for my drink… and waited… and waited… and WAITED?! Oh my gosh, I guess she knows me as a regular and takes that as «since I know you well enough I’ll just make your drink last and all of these other people’s drink first» what the heck! And when I asked «excuse me, is it almost ready?» she got mad and yelled «WHAT do you want your money back? I very busy!» and when I said no she then proceeded to shove the drink in my face. Are you serious? Oppsy, you just lost a customer.

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER bubble drink is the best. Runner up is melon & banana.

Its funny people say she uses «fresh frozen fruit»… I don’t consider it fresh if its frozen.
Anywho, I do like this bubble tea place, or should I say kiosk thing?
The Good:
*Prices are unbeatable :)
*Although not fresh, she does use frozen fruits — as long as she doesn’t use that powder flavor thing that some bubble places use
*Convenient locations (for me anyways)
The Bad:
*No place to sit — it’s a kiosk
*Not the best bubble tea, but its doable.
The Weird:
*They kind of have weird hours, I don’t have it memorized yet… but I think she/​he works pretty much whenever they WANT to?

«Priscilla» — the lady that owns the stand makes the best bubble tea I’ve had here. She uses fresh frozen fruit. It does take her a few minutes to blend it, but the wait is worth it! Plus she’s fun to talk to while you’re waiting :-)

I love the bubble drinks/​smoothies that this little stand makes. It comes out thick, the balls are soft and chewy, and they use fresh fruit with frozen. For a $ 1 more you can add vanilla ice cream.
I usually like to get the strawberry and banana add ice cream. There are also different flavors that I enjoy such as green tea, and taro.
Unilocal Challenge 365: ¹⁰⁄₃₆₅

This place is horrible! and I’m so sad because Bubble Up used to served the best bubble drinks that I know of! =(WELL, that was then, this is now.
First of all, the lady that worked there was rude as hell. I had to stand there and wait in front of her while she finishes her conversation on the phone. Then without even saying a «hello» or anything to me, she looks at me expectantly… as if I should just demand my order. At that point, I didn’t think much of it, so I just told her what I wanted. As I was giving her exact monetary change in paper bills and coins… she looks at the money as if I was giving her a IOU written on a leaf. This pissed the hell out of me. LADY, MONEY IS MONEY! I soooo wanted to smack her the attitude out of her.
As for the actual bubble drink, I ordered a Strawberry w/​pearls and the result was absolutely DISAPPOINTING. There must have been only ~20 pearls in my drink… geez all that for $ 3.70?! You would have thought there must have been a scarcity in tapioca pearls or something…
Secondly, the strawberry smoothie itself… very artificially flavored. I saw her making my drink with a huge bottle of strawberry flavored syrup and ice. I’m so sad because this place used to put real chunks of strawberries in it!
After this visit, I’m seeking elsewhere for my bubble tea fix… For the price I paid for here, I’m 100% positive that I’ll get something MUCH better ELSEWHERE.

I heard the bubble drinks here were the best on the island so we had to check it out. While the drinks were better than your average run of the mill variety the lady who works in this small shed turns this from a 4-​star to a 2-​star rating.
The service was so terrible and rude that I have to go against my overall willingness to support this small local business and would rather settle for second best to avoid giving this spot another dollar.

This review is NOT meant to diss Gloria’s Unilocal review in any way. Ok, now that I’ve given my somewhat apologetic statement, I am ready to review.
The main reason why I only gave this small bubble/​smoothie stand two stars is because of the rather awkward customer service I and another couple experienced while there. The woman who worked there brought her baby to work with her, and that’s usually may not have been a problem except for the fact that her workplace is the size of a closet. She took my order when holding her baby then she proceeded to do some rather complicated juggling of her baby while walking back into her work closet. She had me pay ($ 3.50 for a small, one flavor bubble drink) before she made the drink, but it took her a couple of minutes to take my money due to her fumbling around with her baby. Although I cannot relate to caring for a baby, I can sympathize with her working while she’s trying to watch her baby. However, it was rather entertaining and frustrating to watch her talk to her baby, telling him to sit up, and not play with the money while she tried to decide whether she should keep him in his stroller outside the juice stand or on the chair where he couldn’t sit up himself.
By this time, another couple had arrived and were ready to order. After about five minutes of talking to her baby, taking my money, trying to get her baby harness, and soothing the baby when it started to cry. She took the couple’s order and then she started to try to put her baby in the harness. After a lot of doing and undoing the harness, she had the couple help her strap her into the harness.
I think she was very stressed out, and bringing baby to work wasn’t a usual occurrence. It took me about 10 minutes to get my drink after all the baby adjusting and a phone call between fixing the baby and before blending the drinks. 10 minutes isn’t too bad, I’m not expecting super fast service, but it was quite discouraging to see all of the in-​between activities that made the drink less attractive by the minute. I think the baby drooling and then having his mom make my drink while tending to her baby was the least appealing part.
Getting to the drink, I ordered a strawberry bubble drink. The strawberry drink was like a slush, the taste was rather artificial (powder and ice) but okay. I was hoping for good bubble texture and taste, but it was just okay. It was definitely better than the Juice Factory bubbles, I just didn’t really like the texture.
I may eventually go back again because the price is so cheap, but I’m probably going to stick with Boba Loca no matter what Brad N. says about the place. The taste and boba really can’t be beat at Boba Loca, though it’s good to know that Bubble Up exists just in case…

This little stand located by Makiki Shopping Village, serves the best lychee bubble drink I’ve ever tasted!
Mm-​mm… Imagine a sweet icy blend of lychee with soft tapioca balls to nibble on while you drive home after a long day of work! 8-)…mm-mmm just writing about it makes my mouth water! LOL!
Okay so you know what I like but they server a slew of flavors… Strawberry & Banana, Peanut Butter & Banana, Coconut & Chocolate, Strawberry & Pineapple, Watermelon, Mocha, Vanilla, Honeydew Melon and the list goes on and on…
Depending on what you order the prices range from $ 3.34+Tax to $ 5.25+Tax!
They are closed on Sundays. Next time I go there, I’ll get the times & day’s they are open and post it.