Cafe Rio Mexican Grill

This place used to have great staff and service now they worse than the DMV! Their food is amazing, but I’m about to give up and go eat the infected food at chipotle! Please get your act together and stop being rude and slow!

WOW this is really good Mexican food and they had a special on Sunday it was Fideo. I told the guy last time I had Fideo was when my mom made it Cuban style. He gave me a sample with fire grilled chicken and cheddar cheese, it was amazing. I ordered a Chicken quesadilla and an order of Fideo for lunch the next day. I told him I was heading down from Big Bear and on my way to San Diego. Here is where it gets good he told me he is in training for there newest location in San Diego, I asked where he said San Marcos, I said SWEET ! I cant wait till the new location opens in a few months, Sure I will be a regular.

The food there is pretty decent but the service is really outstanding. They give the kids a free quesadilla and they have a big menu. The ladies behind the counter talked me into getting a wet burrito and I’m glad they did. It won’t be my absolute first choice but if I’m in the area I wouldn’t have much of a problem eating there again.
I wish they served beer but apparently it’s a religious reason why they can’t and I respect that. Thumbs up for being principled.

Café Rio is a Mexican grill similar in fashion to the Chipotle franchise. It offers the usual fare of burritos, tacos, and salads put together on an assembly line in which you (in theory anyway) can throw your own concoction together. Color me surprised when after i added a meat, a few beans, and a small helping of rice, the burrito was wrapped up and passed down the line. I was annoyed that I couldn’t add anything else such as pico de gallo, lettuce, or whatever.
Turns out that all of that is added afterward since they top your burrito with cheese, send it through an oven, and a few seconds later the burrito pops out with melted cheese on top. The additional items like pico de gallo, lettuce, guac, etc… is added on the side. I just thought it was an odd way to make a burrito. Maybe I’ve been making and buying burritos all wrong this whole time? This is probably the reason why it was only my 3^rd trip to Café Rio in a year or two.
My burrito was «wet» or «enchilada» style and the sauce was mediocre. The best was the chile roast beef that I chose as my meat which was very flavorful and pretty much the only part of the burrito I wanted to ingest. My wife enjoyed her tacos which looked a bit more edible plus she enjoyed the in-​store green jalapeño hot sauce. The sauce was a bit overpowering for me in taste but she loved it so take that as you will.
Probably the most annoying thing were the employees singing different odd songs in tandem whenever a customer ordered extra cheese, soup, or whatever. Is this a new thing? Because it’s REALLY annoying. So annoying that we chose to sit outside in the cold and eat rather than inside and listen to that. I wonder what the employee turnover rate for this location is because I’d imagine it would be high as I would go insane from having to do that stupid sh… crap everyday. What’s up with that Mr. or Mrs. Franchise owner?

Love the food but the CATERING TEAM realllllllly messed up! Go ONLY if you want great food at the restaurant. How many errors can one make but after:
1) ordering for our holiday work party for 70 people and spending over $ 1,100.00 (yes, that much)
2) no one called or showed up until 40 minutes later with luke warm food and no pans for the chafing dishes… only to
3) then miss most of what we ordered… but after
4) multiple trips back to the restaurant to get missing items we finally got the full order 2 hours later. But wait there is more…
5) The assistant manager said she would have someone contact me the next day. Still waiting.
6) Five days later, I stopped in to discuss this with the manager. While she was friendly and apologetic, I was told I would get a call from someone on Monday. Still waiting.
Summary: Still more than 2 weeks later, a survey to corporate and a visit to the store, I have had NO phone call or NO contact to discuss this debaucle of a situation. Very discouraging. Hate to put them on blast but don’t want anyone else experiencing this. DO NOT order via catering. It isn’t worth the risk. SMH. Too bad because truly the food is good but never at the risk of unreliability for an event.

Hadn’t visited before but was happy to try since the friend I was meeting said food was amazing. I gotta say that amazing was pretty accurate for the food. I had the steak quesadilla kids meal. Very yummy. The down side was the wait for all the fresh cooking when you are trying to grab a quick meal. If you have the time to wait for a yummy meal then enjoy.