Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Aliso Viejo

I really enjoy the enchiladas and the tortilla soup, and my son likes the tacos. But I have the damnedest time trying to get a correct order. The last couple of times we ordered delivery, my son's order arrived without the rice and black beans we'd requested. On the app we add all kinds of ingredients we want, and it's a crap shoot which ones are actually included. I decided today we would go in to the restaurant too order so that we could watch our food being made, which would surely lead to a more accurate order. We got to make a couple of corrections, but after I got home I realized that instead of having one beef and one chicken enchilada as I had asked for, I instead received one beef and one pork enchilada. I have no idea how that happened when I was standing right there. I mean, there was also a little bit of chicken in my pork enchilada, so maybe I turned and missed the pork being added? Unclear. In addition, my son is vegetarian and gets the tacos veggie style, but we went there so that he could customize the ingredients and leave the beans out this time. First of all, she asked him, "What kind of meat do you want?" When we said, "No meat, veggie," she immediately grabbed two tortillas and put some rice and black beans on them and stuck them on the grill. If she had first asked him what kind of beans he wanted, she'd have known that he did not want beans this time. Instead we told her and then she had to put that order aside and make a new one. They were nice people, but I wish that they would ask more questions and listen and pay better attention to the ingredients that are ordered there and in the app. We really like their ingredients, just would like to be able to get the order as we ask for it, which doesn't seem to be possible at this time. I also ordered tortilla soup. She immediately put chicken in it without asking me what I wanted (fortunately, it was indeed chicken). I also asked for a little rice and beans in my soup, and she said she could do that but it would cost more. I was skeptical because that's not the case in the app, but I just told her to leave it out rather than taking the chance of being overcharged for something that is given for free If ordered in the app. In summary, somehow visiting the store to order was NOT more helpful than ordering in the app, as it turned out. I guess I will have to go back to ordering my food in the app, and then checking it very, very carefully before I leave the...

FILTHY! Now I love eating at Café Rio, but this particular one was disgusting!

The floors were really dirty, filthy, and not mop, or only halfway mopped with clear foot prints all over the place

We looked for a clean table to sit at, But we saw crumbs on all the tables. And there was even a attendant in the dining room they're supposed to clean stuff but clearly somebody was not doing their job.

When we were ordering our food, it was very clear that the food had been sitting there for many hours, and was getting all dried up.

What shocked me was that I saw an employee hop up and just sit on the prep table chatting with another employee, this shocked me, and this was in plain view of the dining room. What employee does that? Talk about a health code violation.

In the bathroom there was left over toilet seat covers, so gross !

When I went to go get drinks, I noticed that the punch circulators were not operating, how long was everything just sitting there stagnant? I had to turn the switch on and then the refrigeration started up, so was everything lukewarm?

One of the exit doors was locked, that's a fire code violation

It's very obvious that the management is not properly training their employees well, and the overall restaurant is dirty and not kept up to...

I've never really written reviews before but I'm a long time Rio fan, 15+ years, and I've never had worse food than from this specific location, the Aliso Viejo Town Center. There used to be absolutely dreadful employees too, and thankfully some of them are gone, which is good. I go for Taco Tuesdays, and I really can't fathom why but the meat here specifically is awful. The El Toro location (which also had some awful employees but some great ones too) makes much better tacos, and I can't figure out why. I've had family pick up tacos from both places different weeks so I don't know which is from where and it's instantly recognizable which taco is from where, you don't even have to taste it! The pork specifically. They manage to get 0 sauce and 0 flavor, I don't even know how its possible but it doesn't taste anywhere near what barbacoa pork should taste like. It doesn't even look like pork it looks like the beef they serve, which is also totally flavorless and unbelievably bland, and all the meat is so UNBELIEVABLY DRY its seriously hard to eat. Again, just down the road at El Toro the tacos are delicious, flavorful, moist, and well made. The town center is a lot closer and its sad I can't go here for tacos because of how...