Rio Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Calgary

One of my really good friends had her birthday celebration at this place last evening. There was a table of 15, every one was ordering food and drinks, every one spent an average of $50 per person. Despite this they still made us pay a $10 cover charge for walking in the door. I'm am going to make a guess that the rent of this place is probably pretty high, as the location is downtown. Right off the bat you can tell that the owners are trying to make a lot of money by cutting many corners and cutting out quality, there are only two things that will make a restaurant prosper, good food and good service. I believe that the owners do not actually know how to run a business, they made a huge mistake there were 15 customers that they made an extremely bad impression on, 1. By charging cover charge 2. Slow mediocre service ( we sat down for 15 minutes with only one menu on the table, we had to keep trying to get her attention to order things)3. Having customers send food back to the kitchen. They had an amazing opportunity to make a good impression on us, with possibility of us being returning customers as well as us telling people we know about it (ps I love supporting small businesses). Instead I'm here advising people not to go there and waste their money. The salmon fillets looked "manufactured", and maybe farmed salmon definitely was too pale to be authentic. The fettuccine Alfredo, tasteless (I hope the sauce didn't come from a jar), noodles were over cooked, chicken breast may have been processed, it had those fake grill marks on it like what you get from macdonalds. The pepper steak, was flavourless, definitely not good quality beef ( I hope it wasn't meat glued beef---yes this is a thing, look it up), my pepper steak was accompanied by 4 previously frozen potato wedges, one piece of broccoli, one piece of cauliflower and one piece of carrot. Keep in mind each entree is $19 and up, those are keg prices with Denny's quality. So they also have a live band, which is pretty nice, so I can understand the cover charge for those who are coming to dance and enjoy the live music, however the majority about 80% of the patrons who came for the music, we're not buying drinks, most had bottles of water. I predict that this place will not be around for much longer unless the owners are willing to make the effort required to keep people coming in to this...

At best, a glorified Denny’s. There was a mandatory, cash-only $10 cover and $2 coat check, even though I got there at 8pm, there was no DJ, and I was there for dinner. Drinks: It took our waitress forever to take drink orders. I ordered a martini, it was good but served in a margarita glass (weird). As the server put my drink down, she spilled some Caesar cocktail on my friend’s blazer hanging on the back of her chair. She did not attempt to clean it or let her know and just left quickly. The price of the drinks is on par with what others charge, but it is a lot for what this place is. Food: I ordered the steak sandwich medium rare, and our server said I had the choice of fries, Caesar salad, or mixed greens. I got the Caesar salad, but little did I know there was a $4 uncharge (she did not mention this at all). My food arrives, and it is well done with a 1/2 inch deep fried strip of fat on the side and a single piece of toast ON TOP of the side salad... My friend’s lasagna had the consistency and structural integrity of tomato soup. The food tasted so bland that we immediately looked up the reviews. Lessons learnt: read reviews before visiting a restaurant. Price range: on par with restaurants downtown, but expensive for what they are. Atmosphere: a Denny’s with a dance floor. Quality of food:...

it was all.medipcre at best. a step.or 2 up from a typical dive bar. had the vodka shrimp appy and it was so over cooked I coulda bounced the shrimp off the floor back to my plate. when waitress was "shown"( we had 1 eachl she said I'll tell the cook and that was the end of it. no discount, nadda. the steaks were done excellent, I'll give him/her that. steak was excellent and the ribs were delicious. kudos. across the restaurant, a table had a pomeranian walking around on the table... like it was an offleash park over priced to. all in all, wasn't happy. won't return. you might have better luck though.

in the response from the owner, you say we ate all the prawns, but had 1 each and told the waitress to test one and to give one to cook. they were rubber. I am a 35 year cook, 17 year chef. I know food. I also noticed you only focused on the negative and tried to defend yourself. poor...