Rio Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Jacksonville

I went in at night for a friend's birthday party. This was my very first time being here so my first impression upon walking in the first set of doors is that it was pretty cute. There are posters of high fashion models and the name DIOR in a square frame on the wall and above a full length mirror in the corner of the opposite wall. The floors were black bricks, which looked nice but was a bit of a slipping hazard if you were wearing heels. The walls were painted black and featured box trim moulding painted in metallic gold. There were burgundy crushed velvet curtains and the booths were a mix of either black crocodile leather or a dark magenta/ light burgundy velvet. The tables and chairs can only be best described as mix and match. There are some brown wooden chairs with black leather cushions but some of the chairs were also painted gray. Then there were other chairs that were a completely different style, like Queen Victoria style furniture. All this to say, it seemed like they had a lot of good ideas for how they wanted the place to look but it just didn't look cohesive. We had reserved a table for 10. The table we were seated at was barely big enough for 6, let alone 10. There was no silverware at the table, we were only given one menu, the seats had something sticky on them which took forever to get someone to clean, and no one came over to take drink orders or anything. Then we were moved to an area but were later told we'd have to move because they liked to keep that area reserved for celebrities and artists and there was someone arriving in 2 hours. Still, there was no silverware at this table, we did manage to get two menus by now, and finally someone was there to take orders.

There was such a variety of foods on the menu and it didn't stick to one particular kind of cuisine. For instance, there were things like wings, quesadillas, bang bang shrimp in the starters section, all things you'd expect to find at a restaurant like Chilli's, Applebee's, or a TGI Friday's. But they had entrees like fish, shrimp, fish and shrimp combo, lamb chops, oxtail, and seafood Mac and cheese, seafood boils and oysters. Sides like Mac and cheese, collard greens, fries, and oxtail jerk fries. They had a series of pasta dishes: rasta pasta, seafood pasta, vegetable pasta, and oxtail pasta. There are no descriptions of any of the food items so you didn't know what was included with any of these dishes or even what type of pasta it was. When we started to order, it became clear that we had chosen the wrong place. They were out of half the things on the menu. No Seafood pasta, no quesadillas, they were out of the oxtail pasta, and out of the vegetables for the vegetable pasta. What's worse is you have to pay before you even get your food. The straw that broke the camel's back was when me and my partner ordered a shrimp rasta pasta which was $20 and a seafood pasta which was $27. Why was my total $61 after tax? They couldn't print me a receipt and instead had the handheld clover card scanner so they eventually managed to email a receipt. I see that they charged me $36.40 for a salmon n shrimp rasta pasta which wasn't what I ordered, nor was it even something on the menu and then $20.80 for the shrimp rasta pasta. I brought this to the attention of my server who took it up with the manager. The manager had the audacity to say that there was nothing they could do because they changed the menus and that was the new price. I was baffled. The food was just okay. Pasta was very oily and the shrimp and salmon were very salty. The birthday girl ordered oysters and they were incredibly salty. Another member of our party had salmon and rice, which was very salty and the rice was incredibly dry. The drinks were over priced and not good. We ordered Whiskey sours (Jack Daniel's), which was in an 8oz disposable cup and tasted mostly of sour mix. I WILL NEVER RETURN...

I visited Rio for the first time on 1/20/24 for a friend’s birthday party. We were sat in a corner section with disjointed seating and two different sized, wobbly tables. The decor was okay but some elements get a bit dated. Our server was nice. However, she was inefficient with ordering and wasn’t able to answer all of our questions about menu items. She had to check with others and leave the table a few times to get answers. They were out greens at 8:30 pm which was wild to me. Anyway, we had three separate checks at our tables and she took the orders, stopped, brought drinks, went back to taking orders. Not sure why. When she got to me and my companion, we ordered 2 double Don Julio with pineapples, one bottle of Stella Rosa for the birthday girl (we were told it was $30), an order of chicken quesadillas and a fish dinner with garlic mashed potatoes instead of fries. We made the substitution very clear. The total was around $140. We didn’t get prices on the drinks; we didn’t ask and there was no drink menu. But I felt that was steep, and said okay, it’s a lounge, it’s not that deep. I paid with a handheld machine at the table, added an 18% tip and ended up with a total of $166 I believe. I asked for an itemized receipt. When I got it, I saw that I was charged an auto gratuity for a party of 5. And I noticed that the suggested tip was calculated off of the total with the auto gratuity. I’m fine with auto gratuity, but it seems deceptive to not make it clear on the payment machine that this is ADDITIONAL tip. The server never informed us of the auto gratuity, it wasn’t anywhere on the menu, and I didn’t see it posted anywhere in the restaurant. I also noticed that the price for my quesadillas was higher than the menu price. Same thing for the Stella. We were charged for a side of mashed potatoes when we made it clear that we wanted to sub them for fries, and yes, the fries came too. And then, we were charged for 4 singles instead of two doubles. When we asked the server about the drinks, she initially said that all 4 of them were doubles. Then I asked again and she said they were all singles. She said the bartender told her they ran out of big cups. But at no point did she come back to ask if we were okay with that. And two singles cost more that one double almost anywhere you go, so that felt like another ploy to charge us a few more bucks. I’ll also point out that the fish was horrible. Somehow it was wet and fried at the same time. It took at least 20 min for the server to come back and check on us after we dropped the food. We explained the problem with the fish and asked For bang bang shrimp instead. Now with the shrimp, my friend at the table ordered them for an appetizer and they came out nicely plated and a rectangular plate. When we got them, they were thrown all over a regular dinner plate and extremely over sauced. They were over seasoned and inedible. By the time that happened we so over the whole experience that we just left them on the table. The server let our food plates stay on the table for least an hour. It was just a subpar experience overall to be honest. I didn’t want to make a big deal about everything at the time and risk ruining my friends birthday experience, but the more I thought about everything that went wrong the more I felt compelled to write this lengthy review. I think these things can be fixed. Price transparency, attentiveness and food consistency are things that i expect from an establishment and things that can be improved if brought to attention. I won’t be back to Rio, but hopefully they can make some changes and be better for the...

I’m convinced I was being punked, because this place is a joke. It was no where near busy or crowded and it took 45 mins to get some dip and lamb chops that were drastically overcooked. How?! How did my friends enter come out 35 mins before the appetizer and my entree? I should have known better when I pulled up to the Ramada Inn to patronize this place, but I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and support a black owned business. I will say, my server was nice. The only thing I didn’t like is that she told me she had to check me out early because it was a different server’s section. I worked in restaurants before and I would keep my table until the guests left. The other server has plenty of other tables in her section to make her money from until then. Plus, the “new” sever only came by to introduce herself and never came back. Anyway, back to the food, did I say it was overcooked and oily. Totally inedible, and by the time it came, I didn’t even want it. They should stick to frying party wings and frozen french fries because that was the only thing they got right. Why did the table of 6-7 ppl, that came 20 mins after me, get their food before me? How is that possible? Lastly, I paid a $10 entry fee. For what?!?! It’s not like buying drinks or food wasn’t going to happen. I could understand it if I only came sit at a table for the music, but this place is supposed to be a restaurant, right,? So why the need for door fee, if I’m definitely going to buy food and drinks? Based on my experience, this place is a club that tries to sell food, not a restaurant, and if you want a nice vibe and good food to enjoy with friends, find somewhere else to go. Save yourself the...