Rio Grande Grill and Tap Room — Restaurant in Ruidoso

Wow. How a year can change a review. I will not be coming back here and cannot recommend. We visited for my birthday dinner and we ordered some wings w the honey-sriracha sauce and 2 ribeye steak meals. The wings a year ago were perfect, large and crispy…tonight they were still crispy w a good flavor but half the size that they were last year. The ribeye steaks though…absolutely terrible. We expect a ribeye to be juicy and tender, but these did not look like ribeye steaks and they were extremely lean and had zero flavor. I now know why the staff had asked us if we wanted steak sauce! My steak had a super intense char taste to it, and it tasted off, and a it had tough texture; the mashed potatoes were weirdly sweet; and the fresh vegetables were sour. The manager/chef came out and I explained I did not like any of my meal but he was more focused on explaining that the steaks were in fact ribeyes and he trims the fat so he isn’t charging $40 for a fatty piece of meat…then still charged us for the full price of both steaks. I had 3 bites of my steak and one bite of each the mashed potatoes and vegetables, it all tasted off to me. I felt as if I was being ignored and the manager/chef was not acknowledging me. He was rude and argumentative when explaining his cooking method and did not address my dislike of my entire meal. We will not be visiting this location again, and, as a local, I do not recommend. I will say that our waitress was very nice and attentive and she apologized to me. 5/9/2025

————————————————————————— Made it out to Rio Grande to try out their wings and other things, we've been hearing good reviews from others. We were not disappointed!! The parking looks bad from the street but there's some behind the building. We ordered wings, spinach artichoke dip, fish & chips and finished it off w a carrot cake. Also ordered drinks; root beer and the hard tea. The wings were fantastic! Perfectly crispy and not too saucy. We ordered 2 orders of 6 so we could try both the spicy boq and the honey sriracha sauces. They were not too spicy or too sweet, a very good blend of the flavors. The carrot cake was devine!! The best cake we have had in Ruidoso so far! Our server actually recommended the cake to us and I'm very glad he did! The spinach artichoke dip was okay, I wouldn't order it again. It was a little too cheesy and more spinach than artichoke and was lacking flavor. The fish & chips were alright, again I wouldn't order them a second time. A little too much batter on the fish and the tartar sauce was bland and the coleslaw was watery. The chips were perfect though!! Best fry I've had around Ruidoso so far! The root beer was delicious and their hard tea was pretty good, we were offered a chance to buy some to-go which was cool. The restaurant is really cozy too, all wood and warmth, and the tables are located upstairs. That was nice bc you can be away from the bar area to enjoy your meal w a more restaurant feel upstairs. Definitely recommend and we look forward to going back to try some...

Very conflicted about this post, but it needs to be known. As a business owner myself, I would like to know. This place is slammed busy, majority of the time. That is ok. My family knew coming into spring break we would have to wait, be patient and give grace to all. Rio was recommended by our family who comes every visit to dine here. Our family has a house here. We will not be back. The bad: The host was so incredibly rude, it took every ounce of my being to be polite back. I came in to check our spot on the list. (I have 2 small children, who are on CST time, plus time change and getting a little hangry.) the host snaps at me saying you just asked me 5 minutes ago. False and I have time stamps to prove it from a text message chain. I had been waiting 35 minutes. Apparently, my husband had come and asked 20 minutes prior, unbeknownst to me, and was also snapped at by the same host. I told the host it was not me who asked and I was very polite. Several people in the dining area stopped me and said how they couldn't believe how rude the host was and how I handled it very well. Fast forward, we are ready to be seated. Host has completely changed their attitude and is overly nice. Our server was wonderful. She knew the menu, recommendations were spot on. Unfortunately, I did not take her advice and ordered something else and it was not good. My husbands plate (her favorite) was delicious. Beers was great! Dessert was the best part of the experience (chocolate cake). Very, very good dessert. We were there from 5:50-8:10pm. It was a long dining experience and expensive for getting my head snapped off for no reason. Our bill was $150 with tip. (Yes, we tipped our server very well because she can't help the host was a jerk.) The reason I am conflicted about this post is because it's clear they are short staffed and trying their best (minus the one). The owner was helping out on the floor which is a wonderful to see him supporting his workers. My suggestion is just be transparent with people. Hey, we are slammed, we are doing our best. The majority of us will understand and the ones who don't you don't want their business anyway. Paying customers don't deserve to get their heads snapped off. We will not be back, but I wish...

They really need to work on their seating skills here. The wait was ridiculous!!! Mind you the restaurant was busy, but it took almost 2 hours to get a table. This is after they told us it would be about a 45 minute wait. We were a group of 5 people. For whatever reason the hostess allowed EVERY SINGLE group that came in after us to be seated before us! We arrived at about 5:45pm and didn’t receive a table until almost 7:30pm! My husband went back to the hostess at some point to see if we would be seated soon. There’s a list of customers in the order they arrive and every name after ours was crossed off!! There was at least 7 names crossed out after our name.. on top of all the names of groups that arrived before us but had yet to be seated. And yet the hostess said it would still be a little while wait. She then allowed several other customers to be seated!! They had literally just arrived and were seated, yet we didn’t get a table! By the time we finally got a table they had run out of all their specials. I was pretty disappointed that they couldn’t manage their restaurant enough to allow for a group of 5 to be seated in a semi decent time. I would have given them a one star, except the burger my husband ordered was really good. The lasagna was kind of gross. The restaurant was about to close soon by the time we were served, so maybe the lasagna was just old. The green chili hadn’t been roasted, the noodles were rubbery and it was flavorless. The sauce was kind of curdled looking. We weren’t the only bigger group to get terrible service. I noticed two other groups of 5+ people leave after noticing group after group after group of 4 or less people be seated before them. In hind sight we should have gone somewhere else, but I was excited to try this place. I wouldn’t go back. Well except maybe to get a burger — for...