Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Lehi

The food is still great as always, I debated giving 2 stars for that amongst the rest of our experience... However I noticed as we were walking down the line getting our burrito that things were particularly more dirty. I first noticed the rubberized coating on the handles of the tongs in the meats were all crackly, well-worn and falling off. I could only imagine finding one in my food (or even worse — having one but not finding it in my food).

The employee making our burrito only had his hair net halfway on, and you could tell it wasn’t covering the hair on his forehead. We get to the checkout and a lady brings back a cup that was kind of torn on the edge. She had her hand in it trying to fix it, then brought it back to the cashier asking to swap it out. The cashier gave her one, and then took her broken cup back and placed it into the stack with all of the brand new cups to give to another customer.

We went to sit down, and although there weren’t many people in the restaurant at the time, tables were dirty and we had a hard time finding a place to sit that we wouldn’t have to wipe down ourselves first. (Not to mention the employee sitting next to us on break amongst the dirty tables).

I run to the bathroom to wash my hands to find that not only is there no soap in the dispenser, it isn’t even attached to the wall anymore. And there isn’t even an empty refill in there. Just completely attracting dust on top of the towel dispenser. No soap to be found. I could only imagine the employees who made my food using the restroom. Although I’m sure (and hope) there are other places to wash their hands behind the counter.

Then I sit down and we start eating, and sure enough my first bite in I look down to find a short dark hair in the cheese I was about to put into my mouth.

This is probably the first review I’ve ever written on a restaurant in my life. I’m easily pleased wherever I go. And I’ve always had good experiences at this location. But this time things were off for some reason. And the only reason I post this is because I’m sure there’s a business owner that would like an update on what I am seeing as a consumer today. If I had his number I would send this directly to him. (It was roughly 4:50pm when we placed our order). We love Cafe Rio, and would love to keep coming back to the service we are used to. Thank you for listening!

**Update (now 10/6/17): I hope to soon go back into this location (possibly this week). I’m hoping to see some changes and to have a different experience...

So so disappointed by this location. I love Cafe Rio generally and I was really excited to have one so close when this opened. I've now had 3 fairly poor experiences, and I'm officially done with this one.

My most recent experience was just ridiculous. The place was a horrible mess, and employees seemed to be lost and confused. A bunch of workers were sitting on a bench doing nothing. The ingredients were all over, meat, cheese, sauces etc. were all over the counter and spilled into the trays for other ingredients. I was surprised enough at the untidiness that I snapped some pics so people would believe me.

I was turned off immediately by the unsightly nature of the restaurant, but I decided to order anyways. I ordered a few tacos and asked for no cheese or butter. I have a dairy allergy, which was the reason for my request. I had gotten weird looks and kind of rude comments for this request before (only at this location), but this time it seemed to completely boggle the kid's mind. He looked at me with a confused look, and then asked if I wanted the tacos heated up. Ummm yes... no cold tacos please. After waiting about 5 minutes or so, and having the same kid ask "did you have nachos?" after he had already started my tacos, another, far more competent employee stepped in. He noticed that my tacos had been made with corn tortillas and asked if that's what I wanted. I said no, I wanted the flour just like normal. I hadn't been told, but they were out of the smaller flour tortillas so the first employee just made it with corn without asking.

When I found out all that was left was corn, I said I'd still take them but I asked if I could get a discount. This is the only part of my experience that was positive, because the kid who finished my order and rang me up was great. He gave me a discount and a free drink. Fair enough, I was satisfied enough despite everything because of the effort that employee made to help me out... I wouldn't have complained if that was the end of everything. Unfortunately, when I got home and finished one of my four tacos and was about to start on the second, I found a dead bug in the pico. Didn't finish the rest, because they weren't that good with the corn tortillas anyways, and I would rather not eat bugs.

I'll be making the slightly further drive to Costa Vida from now on, which I never thought I'd say. I was always a bigger fan of Rio, but this...

This is by far the worst Cafe Rio I've been to. I work near Thanksgiving Point and was super excited to finally have a location nearby. My first time at this location was on Easter Sunday. My husband and I came in around 5pm, and there were 5 or 6 staff members available. There was only one other person in front of us, who was at the register. Multiple staff members looked at us, but it took nearly 15 minutes for one of them to acknowledge us and begin taking our order. My husband ordered a burrito and it fell out of the broiler. The employee's saw this happen, stared at it on the floor, and continued on. When they asked my husband what he ordered, he pointed to the burrito on the floor. The employee then seem annoyed and inconvenienced that he had to make a new meal.

My next (and last) visit was last night, 4/30. I was in the Pleasant Grove area and around 8:40pm I looked online to see what times the Cafe Rio's near me were closing. The AF location closed at 9 so I decided to look at the Lehi location, which listed they closed at 10pm. By the time I got there it was 8:55. I double checked the hours on the door, which also listed 10pm. I walked in and right off the bat the staff seemed annoyed and hesitant to help me. Again, there was only one other person in front of me who was already cashing out. As I waited for someone to help take my order, one staff member made a comment to another staff member that it was now 9 o'clock and to lock the doors. At this same time, another couple had walked in and the staff groaned and rolled their eyes. Instead of taking my order, they argued about how to lock the doors. The gentleman behind me asked one of the employee's if they didn't really close at 10 as advertised, to which she replied with, "No. We close at 9. Because our kitchen is so small." If your location truly closes at 9, please update your hours on your store front, as well as online. This is false advertisement. I work in a restaurant and understand how annoying it can be to have people come in right at the last minute, which is why I always try to avoid this myself, and made sure to go to a location that was open later. The staff at this location are rude and slow. If I wouldn't have had a free meal to take advantage of, I would have gone somewhere else. I will not be going back to...