Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Meridian

Me and my family were looking for a place to eat out we wanted to try something new and we found Cafe Rio it looked good online so we decided to give it a shot. We waited in line for 10mins with no one in front of us. There were several employees just standing around in the kitchen, I understand that it may not be their jobs to serve the customers but they could communicate with their fellow employees that customers are waiting. Looking back this is where we should’ve said sorry and left but we watched an employee dump a new container of sauce into the old crusty container that was empty. I lost count of how many times I watched cross contamination happen (touching employees on the back then going back to touching food, touching the register then food touching a mop etc. you get the point) once we got our food it was impossible to find a clean table I had to clean our table off the best I could with a napkin. The floor was COVERED in rice, speaking of rice my husband said their rice was so hard. My daughter’s quesadilla had hair in it and so did my husband’s burrito we decided we were done eating after that! I wanted to tell someone about it but good luck every employee disappeared and I wasn’t wasting any more time in this NASTY place. I honestly believe they are so over staffed that they just lallygag around and just stand around on their phones and hanging out with each other. I will never come back to this place and I’m warning anyone who reads this review don’t come here just go to Costa Vida because this place is basically the same place but with horrible food, service and cleaning abilities. At least at Costa Vida they actually have great food, amazing service and their...

I’m a live and die Cafe Rio gal and was super excited when I found out we were getting one in town. I’ve been pretty disappointed from moment one! It’s been so dirty every time I’ve been in there, even when they first opened. Today we got there at 11:10, ten minutes after opening and the tables hadn’t been cleaned from the night before, spilt soda on the floor, and trash all over the floor. The staff member ask My husband if we wanted a tortilla for his salad and then was told “the tortilla kid called in sick so…” and then just stared as us after pointing to the dough just sitting there, like not my issue. I had to intervene- the hubby got a bowl- not with steak like he wanted because “we don’t have it ready” Not one other staff member even looked at us today, there were two other ladies there. Not one mention an offering some chips/salsa, drink, nothing to compensate the crap service, lack of available food and inconvenience. Nothing.

The staff is rude, they don’t even greet you even though you’ve been standing there in-line for 5 minutes. They never have half of what they should and most of the time your order is wrong anyways. I gave you 3 solid tries, we’re done.

PS: two other couples left while we were there due to the same...

Our meals were horrendous. What happened to Cafe Rio?

The tortilla on my burrito tasted either raw or old (with crunchy bits on a soft tortilla, so I'm guessing old?), and the rice was so crumbly, it's either under cooked or old rice. I used to look forward into digging into the burrito finding ample sweet pork, but tonight I saw a few bits of pork, otherwise it was crumbly rice and beans.

My wife's tostada was topped with less than half the salad it normally does, and the grill steak she gets every time was about half as much.

The drive through service was alright enough, but the poor girl at the window had to hand me the greasy stick that everyone touches with the card reader on it just so that it could "ask me a question", AKA "tip"? She couldn't even make eye contact with me after handling me the device-on-a-stick. How about you pay your employees better so that they can maintain some sense of dignity rather than beg for tip to supplement their wage?

I don't do a lot of reviews on this nonsense, but dinner was so bad I needed a place to vent. Given the quality of the food, I'll be lucky if we're not fighting for the toilet in an hour's time. Good bye, Cafe Rio, you were good when you were, until you weren't, which you...