Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Taylorsville

This used to be a great location, but the current staff and level of customer service has turned this location into one to be avoided in 2020.

I've made six mobile orders in April and not a single one of them has ever been complete; there are always items, add-ons, or extra missing such as extra cheese/pick, side sauces, or desserts. Orders are just sitting there inside the store without being brought out to the people waiting on sidewalk and in their cars. One recent order, for example, was completed and ready to brought out at 8:21, but want given to me until I walked up to the door as asked for it at 8:44. This was after an employee came out to our car and took our name at 8:00. Nothing quite like getting home and having a cold meal that was made 30 minutes ago. Our most recent order was completed incorrectly and because of the delay we waiting 1.5 hours to get our order correctly.

Even prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, the night staff were unfriendly and put little to no effort into the meals they prepared meaning that any dine-in order made after 6 would be a coin toss in how good it would be.

ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW This Cafe Rio location is one of the better, if not the best, location in the Salt Lake valley. There is ample amounts of seating, friendly staff, and easy parking. They're only flaw is diminished portion sizes during rush hour service.

Seating: The lobby is quite large with a variety of seating options. There's booths, tables with benches, window bars with stools, tables for couples, and tables for groups.

Rush hour service: I mentioned above that this location struggles during their lunch and dinner rushes. When the lines are long, your portion sizes are diminished. I assume they do this to preserve their food as long as possible to reduce the frequency of refilling their line (i.e. they give you less meat, rice, and beans so that those items don't have to be refilled as frequently). This is especially disappointing knowing that you're getting less food then what you're paying for on top of an already long wait.

It seems like the main reason they have such long wait times during rush is because they only have one cashier. If they were to staff another cashier, even on the to-go registers, the wait times could be dramatically reduced. Instead, the line bottlenecks at checkout.

Staff: The staff are always friendly and make your food to order. They have a good bond with each other and it's noticable that the group gets along well.

Cleanliness: The store is always clean and free of trash. I've never experienced issues with trash accumulating in or around the trash bins or on the floor.

Summary: Great location that has a friendly staff with plenty of space for you and your party. The food is good and the drink bar is better than in other locations. If you go there outside of rush hour service times, you'll have an awesome experience. It's still a good experience during rush hour, but there is a twenty minute...

Still one star and that is being generous!

16 Sep 2024, placed my order online at 7:00pm Was told it would be ready at 7:20pm. Showed up at 7:30pm still not done. They pumped out an entire line of walk ins…8:00p STILL NOTHING. (All while told they are working on it) Manager finally came out of hiding, REPRINTED MY TICKET AT 8:15 and THEN tells me they ran out of fire grilled steak (which had they made it when I first ordered, they would have had it). Threw it together with a substitute to get me out the door and then noticed when I got home it was STILL WRONG!

It is a shame that I have to even give one star to leave my review. Last night's experience with Cafe Rio... Wanting to use the convenience of phoning in an order became a nightmare. After repeating myself FOUR times the operator couldn't get a simple order of 2-salads and 2- large drinks correct. So I asked to speak to the manager, only to be told "I don't know how to do that". Took my name and number telling me she will have the manager call me. No call. Called back and this time I was put on hold. While all this is going on, I am driving to the store. The manager finally answered the phone while I drove from downtown to Taylorsville as was standing in the lobby and I watched her walk to the back of the store talking to me. Not once did she offer to see me in person but just explained/excused that phone in orders are handled by a call center and then sent to the store at no point offering in anyway to make up for the incompetence I experienced. Stay tuned. It gets better... Part 2. Called "Customer service" after my experience and due to after hours, left name and number telling them this is not a congratulatory call so call me ASAP. Next day, nothing by 11:30 am so I call back "during business hours." Recording. Left message. 12:15 pm. Recording. Left msg. Called right back and FINALLY reached a human pressing for the receptionist who explains to me that their customer service "department" consists of ONE PERSON. Again, left message this time explaining I would really like to discuss this via private phone call rather than reaching out via Facebook and social media...you are reading this so you see which course they chose. Costa Vida...

We placed an order online & set the pickup time for 7:30. We arrived 15 min early & waited in our car until we saw our order name on the pickup screen under the "ready" section. We went in to pick up our food & it was nowhere to be found. We waited patiently at the pickup counter for someone to awknowledge us & even tried to get the staff's attention several times. Everyone ignored us. Finally after waiting more than 20 min past our pickup time, we eventually got someone to pay attention to us & asked where our order was. The lady checked the screens & told us it hadn't even been started yet & that it would be another 10-15 min wait! Then, after waiting yet ANOTHER 15 minutes, (we had now been waiting 45 minutes for our order), the girl clearing the tables noticed a backup forming & started checking the orders sitting on the back counter. She explained to us that our order was ready--in fact that it had been ready this whole time, they were just waiting on the queso to warm up! That was NOT what the earlier employee told us. If she had, we would've told her to just remove the queso off our bill so we could take our order & get out of there. Which is what we did once we found out what the hold up was. So now our food, after sitting around for 45 minutes to an hour, was cold & soggy. What's even more upsetting is that they messed up our order! We were charged for several items we never received. We are VERY dissatisfied with this location! We've had problems like this in the past with long wait times & the to-go staff getting our order wrong or leaving things out, but it's never been THIS bad before. We will never visit this location again...even though it's closer to our house than any other location, we'd rather go somewhere else than suffer through such a bad experience again with this unfriendly, discourteous, & incompetent staff! We understand mistakes are made, & we can forgive that. However, we cannot forgive rudeness & being ignored. The staff did not even apologize to us or even show that they cared about the inconvenience they caused us....