Cafe Rio

I was with a group of ladies in a new town, looking for some grub. We were heading somewhere else, but pulled into a strip mall area to see what was there. We all agreed that this place sounded fabulous. We piled in to find a very busy place. I loved how the menus were on the wall so while I was standing, I could decide what I wanted. It smelled so good!
I ordered a salad and added chicken. They make tortillas fresh – right there behind the window. It’s like the Mexican version of Subway… you just tell them what you want and how much.
They were very generous with the toppings, my salad was HUGE! I got to the employee collecting payment and, well, her unhappy attitude was kind of a buzzkill. I hope it was just a random bad day – she was not very friendly. She handed me my glass for water and I shrugged it off.
The food was really good. There was kind of an abundance of lettuce, which made finding my other toppings feel like I was on a hidden treasure quest. Everything was really delicious. And huge. Like, I’m pretty sure people could share a bowl and then share dessert. But I don’t even know if they serve dessert. I did see a candy store nearby though.
It was clean and bright and had lots of good mountain energy flowing though this place. I’d eat here again!

I love Café Rio just like the next person, but this West Valley location is not at the same level of standard as other Café Rio’s throughout the valley. To save some time during our lunch break, my coworker’s and I utilized the website to submit orders for pick up. When we got there, they apparently «lost» 9 of our website orders even though we received confirmation numbers. We received no apology, and had to get in the extremely slow moving line. The employees were not friendly, and were very careless when putting together everyone’s meals, resulting in a sloppy mess that took longer than necessary. Thankfully, there was no difference in taste which is why I’m giving 2 stars instead of 1.

A little annoyed this last visit since I finished my salad.
Yes, finished. I’ve never finished a salad here because the portions are normally HUGE. I do notice this location is a lot less than the 56^th location. This was the first time I tried the shredded chicken salad and I actually liked it a lot. The pork barbacoa is usually my favorite but the chicken is also nice if you don’t want something so sweet. The house dressing over the lighter dressing, always. Make sure you don’t forget your stamp card. The 10^th purchase is the «FREE MEAL.»

Coconut shrimp tacos, oh how I dream about you — but I can never make it on whatever the special day is for shrimp tacos. When Rio decided to make them every day I went against my better instincts & ordered dinner online — hey its Sunday & not much else is open here in Utah. This location was out of shrimp but they did call me & I ordered my standard chicken salad. Dreams & hopes dashed I went to pick up my order & remembered why this location just plain sucks.
When you go to a place like Café Rio you expect consistency. You get a perfectly blended, scientifically engineered, balance of salty, fatty, high calorie goodness that keeps food addicts like me «on the comeback» as they say in the crack cocaine trade. My tortilla was under done — all doughy & white. The dressing tasted very different — watery & pale, under seasoned. Rice was over cooked & mushy. Not cool, not yummy.
But here is the kicker — IT WAS FILTHY! Trash cans overflowing outside the door. Food all over the floor & tables. Garbage all over the floor. Hey Management, guess what? If your dining area & store front is dirty we will all assume the kitchen is 10x worse! I swear I am NEVER going back to this Café Rio & I highly recommend you avoid this disgusting pig sty.

As many others have pointed out this isn’t a very good Café Rio. They don’t seem to be run very well. I come here because it’s the closest location to me but that will probably change. They are often out of things, cup lids, knives, napkins, etc. today they are out of beef. One of their 3 meat choices. Completely out. I did an online order but apparently no one bothered to check the to go printer. My order wasn’t ready and then they tell me they’re out of beef and had been most of the day. Very disappointing.

I came back after my coworker begged me to go get some on my lunch, I can can attest to the continued horribleness that this location has. I ordered a Pork Salad and a Chicken Tostada and hour before coming to pick it up. I get there and they had given it away to someone else. Awesome. So I got to wait for another twenty minutes while they make me go stand in line to get the food THAT I HAD ALREADY PAID FOR. The management at this location is a joke, the workers are horrible and their food is processed sugar with meat flavoring. I will never go back and I URGE you to avoid this place at all costs.

Café rio in general is good. But this place. The service was slow. Like they were low staffed or serving. They took their time doing everything and stood around. Even in the bathroom they were out of toilet covers and although there was toilet paper, the rolls were just sitting on top of the dispenser. That just showed the quality of work there…

I wish I could give it negative stars. Do yourself a favor and pick a different location.

I WISH I could give you 0 stars. I don’t see this place lasting much longer and everything you read about this location is true. This place needs a clean slate with new employees and a new manager.
I tried ordering online but there isn’t an option to type in special requests for allergies and extras so i called ahead.
I order two pork burritos. Simple right? Apparently my order was harder than rocket science. The lady on the phone didn’t seem to care and I had to constantly make sure she was still on the other end of the line.
I ask for two pork burritos, one with rice and one without, both enchilada style with extra sour cream. Simple. She didn’t get it. She even repeated a completely wrong dish back to me saying I ordered a salad. I had to have her repeat my order THREE times before she could get it right. Then when it was time for me to give her my credit card info over the phone she disappears! She comes back after 30 seconds and says– can you repeat that bc I put the phone down bc my friend was talking to me. Are you kidding me? So I repeat my card number AGAIN and still I hear nothing. She then comes on the phone the SECOND time and says — sorry I put the phone down again.
I’m ready to burst and ask for her manager but I’m at work and didn’t have time. So I ask her to repeat my order for the very last time and it seems to be right. Wrong.
Once I get my order they completely forgot the extra condiments I PAID FOR and had the wrong sauces. Oh dear. I don’t know where the manager is but they need to be replaced. This place will close down and I’m sad for that but the staff needs a serious training or a fresh new staff.

Just an update, today i received a call from café rio’s corporate office and they are going to look into the incident, they apologize and promise to solve the issue, at least i know that corporate doesn’t approve this behavior from their employees. kudos to them.

I love café rio but the service here was TERRIBLE. The girls working here are rude and need to work at a dog kennel with the filthy language I heard spewing from their mouths. No wait a dog kennel has better customer service. Nevermind. I’ll take my buisness somewhere else till the owner realizes how much buisness he’s losing because of them smh. Let me know when that day happens and I’ll be back.

So, we said we’d give this location 1 more try. After various forms of disappointment ranging from disinterested staff, to lukewarm food, the proximity of this location warranted one more shot. Never again. It’s as though the sugar and salt shipment didn’t arrive.
There was absolutely ZERO flavor in just about every element of this meal. The only thing that tasted «Café Rio» were the chips. Their signature pork was devoid of any sweetness. The classic cilantro dressing lacked any of the zip that makes this dressing unique. Even the specialty lemonades were watered down and a waste of a cup. The rice was crunchy and undercooked. The Rio is promoting the Coconut Shrimp salad… my wife ended up deveining 90% of them before eating. Another item of note, the tables and chairs are so crammed together that I felt like Pac-​Man running away from ghosts as we tried to exit.
If this is a franchised location, corporate should want to stop this atrocity before it continues. At this point, if Café Rio is something that we crave, we will drive to Millcreek in the hopes that one of the original locations holds true to the myth of Utah’s favorite Mexican casual fast food. Never again @ this location. Don’t do it.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. What a mistake I made by going to this location. I order a quesadilla which took about 15 minutes to make for some reason, I had to let 4 people go in front of me to pay so I didn’t hold up the line! The cashier kept shouting «she is waiting on a quesadilla» and none of the employees seemed to even care. Finally I get my meal and start eating and was very disappointed, the ranch and this location is horrible and my quesadilla was the worst. I now know I will never go back to this location.

I love Café Rio, but today they were 20 minutes late with my online order which I placed over 2 hours in advance. They weren’t busy either. The line was short for in-​store orders and no line at the take out. So today this particular location earned a poor review.

I see now why all the reviews were so low… I went in, and they had no grilled chicken, or steak. Given it was 8pm and they closed at 9pm, there was still a large amount of people coming into the restaurant. But the service was super slow. Looked like they were getting ready to close an hour early. And weren’t expecting anybody else to show up. Slow service, but still great food.

If I could post 0 stars, I would. In fact, if I could post negative stars, I’d do that.
I showed up at 9:25, with 35 minutes left until close I was excited… I thought this would be a great change of pace from my usual In-​N-​Out and it came with rave reviews from people from the area.
Steak? Out. Sour cream? Out. And they could have cared less. None of the advertised drinks were out and available.
I have choices just like you do… do yourself a favor and choose somewhere else.

I eat at Café Rio once in a very long time, only when I’m craving their salad. They are so skimpy on the meat, and it is quite expensive for a salad. The people that work behind the line are not friendly or customer oriented at all. I’d rather go to Chipotle.

The food tasted about the same at this location as every other Café Rio I’ve been to, except the pork was not shredded well (really clumpy) and was pretty dry. However, this rating is mostly for the appalling service I received. I placed an order online at 12, the website advised it would be ready at 12:30. I arrive around 12:35 and was told the order wasn’t ready. Not sure why since they almost had 40 minutes to make a pork salad, but okay, I can wait.
About 10 minutes later, still nothing. Finally, another employee, who I later find out is a manger, asks what the name on the order was, checks the system and said they didn’t receive my order… Why wasn’t I told this when I first got there, instead of «she’s making it right now»?
I showed the manager my order confirmation and he said it doesn’t matter what that shows, they didn’t get it. I was told they would prepare my order and I asked if they would give me anything for this inconvenience — I had been waiting about 15 – 20 minutes by now. He said no, since it wasn’t their fault.
Not once did any employee apologize. Yes, they ended up (grudgingly) not charging me for the salad. I still paid for the drink and tres leches, wouldn’t even give me a stamp. I get back to work with my food, and was missing the strawberries for the dessert and some of the inclusions for the salad.
I just cannot believe the overall attitude and poor service at this location. Not one «I’m sorry» — even though a simple pick-​up ended up taking over 20 minutes. Not sure when/​if I’ll return to this location.

I’m from Denver. We don’t have Café Rio in the Mile High City.
Probably for the very reason I’m about to review.
You’re herded into a line like cattle and get to choose from a variety of things that all end up tasting the same because they are the same just arranged differently.
The flavors are not unique or especially good unlike their competitors in the assembly line Mexican food chains.
This location in particular was very lack luster. My burrito was cold because the employee working chucked it in the oven so hard it was halfway through already.
It was unfortunate because she was rushing so fast and it still took almost 20 minutes to get the food and sit down even though it wasn’t very busy.
And it gave me a stomachache like usual.
Meh. My Utah born hubbers loves it of course.

Is it just me, or have Café Rio’s in general taken a serious nose dive in quality over the past years.
I use to love Café Rio because their quality of product and service were consistent, but now it would appear as though they are resting on their laurels.
Maybe they have just grown to big for their britches, or maybe since they have reached a certain amount of success they feel as though they don’t have to try and impress anyone anymore, either way, the customers are the ones suffering.
I placed a to go order a few nights ago. The girl on the phone was rude as all get out and rushed me through my order, even though I repeated it no less than 3 times because she kept repeating back to me the wrong request. When she figured she had it she essentially hung up on me and when I got my order home, it was wrong, surprise surprise.
Not only was it wrong, but it was one of the worst meals I have had. The price for my steak salad was over $ 10 and yet, I had a difficult time locating the steak. I probably got 4 good straps total. The «quality» of the steak was terrible. It tasted like it was on the verge of going bad.
The beans are a problem there as well. I eat beans all the time, but every time I eat Café Rio beans I end up with intestinal distress. I know, because I soak my own beans that if they don’t soak long enough, or are cooked improperly this is often the result.
My suggestion to Café Rio is to get back to basics. I know one of the original minds behind the menu and if there is one thing I know about this chef it is that he insisted on not cutting corners. Quality matters.