Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Gilbert

Writing this as a BEWARE for people if you are looking for a good Cafe Rio experience. AVOID this place like the plague. They don't have the food that is standard and ready on demand, like the other Cafe Rio stores. We've gone to several and never have the negative experience we get here. We've come several times over the past few months and are finally giving up on this store. We usually go with couple friends and tonight when we said we were coming here, they passed based on previous experience. We should have done the same. We didn't get anything requested.

Want corn tortillas, sorry they are out. Want flour tortillas, that will be a wait because they had to be made and were out. Want rice, sorry they are out. Want guacamole, sorry they are out. On top of all this, you make your items a meal to find they shut down all their signature drinks more than an hour before close, which I am attaching pictures along with the dirt, grime, and dirty rag hidden behind the plastic dinnerware. Food safety hazard eating of the dinnerware this close to cross contamination. WOW.

Here is the best part.

After waiting on food, we were literally finishing the last few bites of dinner at 10:01pm. The lobby cleaning girl came up to us and informed us they were now closed and we needed to move to a table on the other side of the restaurant so she could clean our table. OMG - YES...They expected us to move to a table and dirty it, or sit at a dirty one while they cleaned this as we were in our last bites. You bet I had words and put them straight in their place. After this, they said nothing to the people who walked in at closing and sat sparsely throughout the restaurant, who were also frustrated to be waiting on rice, as they waitied. This was nearly 45 minutes after we requested it and was told it would be ready in 17 minutes. The staff was lazy, made excuses for everyrhing, and had bad attitudes. This place needs new management. Current management permits harassment of random patrons which is terrible.

Go to the Cafe Rio on Rural and Baseline, they actually serve food at that location. Been to both locations several times and never had a bad experience at the Rural store. Exact opposite of this store, where I've yet to have a...

Cafe Rio's customer service has plummeted to new depths of incompetence and apathy. My recent experience with their online ordering system was nothing short of a disaster. Despite placing my order well in advance, I was left waiting for a staggering 30 minutes past the promised pickup time. The staff seemed utterly oblivious to the growing line of frustrated customers, prioritizing in-store orders while completely ignoring those of us who had the audacity to use their supposedly convenient online system.

When I finally received my order, it was a pitiful shadow of what I had actually requested. Ingredients were missing, portions were laughably small, and some items were entirely wrong. They had entirely left out an item I had ordered. It's as if the kitchen staff had played a game of culinary roulette with my meal. The burrito I ordered was barely half-full, as I had ordered extra meat.

The staff's attitude was the rotten cherry on top of this inedible sundae. Their complete lack of concern or willingness to rectify the situation was appalling. When I attempted to address the issues, I was met with blank stares and shrugs, as if my dissatisfaction was an inconvenience to them.

This experience is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Cafe Rio has become a master class in how to alienate customers through consistently poor service, subpar food quality, and a blatant disregard for customer satisfaction. The once-beloved restaurant chain has devolved into a shadow of its former self, seemingly more interested in cutting corners than in providing a decent meal or service. It's clear that Cafe Rio has lost all semblance of quality control, in their food preparation and their customer service.

If you value your time, money, or digestive system, avoid Cafe Rio at all costs. There are far better options available that won't leave you feeling cheated, hungry, and questioning your life choices. Cafe Rio has become the epitome of fast-food mediocrity, serving up disappointment with a side...

Typically I love Cafe Rio, and many of the locations I've been to are excellent, however, when we visited your restaurant on Friday 7/10 at around 8:30pm we were SEVERELY disappointed. We ordered a shredded chicken burrito and a green chili pork salad. The young guy at the counter was sloppy, not listening to the customer, and provided poor food service overall. First off the burrito contained so much bean juice in it it was like soup, and although we wanted to put onions and cilantro inside the burrito, he threw the burrito, not even really wrapped into the oven before we could say that we wanted it. Then with the salad, he did not offer to heat up the tortilla with cheese for the salad, and he looked at me like I was crazy to ask for this even though every other location I have been to offers this first thing. When asked if your locarion had cotija cheese he stated that they did not have that type of cheese and one of the other ladies had to correct him and tell him where the cheese was. Additionally, he finished making my salad but forgot to give me dressing, so I caught his attention and asked for the house dressing, but it still didn't make it into the bag when we got home! Unfortunately we were not provided with any receipt and although the lady behind the counter scanned my cafe rio earn code twice, the $17 charge never reflected points on my app. I think she may have received an error twice and chose not to tell me there was an error the second time. As a side note, the new barrier made it difficult to hear each other which made the situation more difficult/frustrating. I don't know if this guy was just not trained properly for working at the counter or if he just didn't care. Like I said, typically I really like Cafe Rio, but tonight was simply...