Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican — Restaurant in Tooele

I pulled this review a few hours after I posted it, thinking I might have been too harsh, but this morning I started reading through other recent reviews and decided I need to add my voice to this choir, hoping management will hear our song of complaint. My previous review:

I know better than to go through the drive through… and I never do anymore, not since Covid, something magically happened during Covid that it became acceptable to only get 80% of the order correct in the drive through line… but I’m injured at the moment and I really wanted some Cafe Rio. I decided to order standard stuff to maximize my chances of getting an accurate order… and I was spectacularly disappointed again. Ordered 3 large tortillas on the side, only got one. Ordered a side of house dressing (I even asked at the window to confirm I ordered the right one), no dressing in the bag. Ordered a standard sweet pork quesadilla, it came with some weird tomato sauce inside with the meat and cheese (I didn’t even know that you could get a sauce in your quesadilla, nor did I know that you had a tomato sauce available). (On a separate note, the sauce was delicious and actually went well with the sweet pork; but I am on a rant, don’t side track me with positives) The employee running the drive through hurried me through my order and never repeated the order back, over the intercom or at the window. I don’t know if it is just the Tooele location or if all Cafe Rio drive throughs have this problem, but I am almost positive that I have not received one single order that was 100% correct since before 2020, probably 6-7 orders. (In store orders are great, almost always correct, even with my wife and girls’ complicated orders.) Please, at a bare minimum, train your drive through employees to repeat back the order before moving the car forward. I didn’t check my order until I got home to my starving wife who just dealt with the...

Edit: I’ve reduced my rating further. The issues I noted below continue but now they have really started skimping on how much is included, especially salads and tostadas. The amount of every ingredient seems to have dropped by 30% or so and they’re just pitiful looking now

We have ordered here about twice a month on average over the last year and a half. Almost always on a Friday evening and about 75% from the app for store pick-up and 25% in the store (just going through the line). Most of the time we get salads, burritos, and tostadas. The food itself is still quite good but the service and attention to detail has dropped dramatically in the last few months, starting around October 2023 (about 5 months ago at time of writing this).

Since then we have not had a single pick-up order without some issue. The primary issues are either an ingredient is missing entirely (the meat, guacamole, the tortilla when requested on the side) or the instructions are not followed (an ingredient was not on the side as requested or extras of an ingredient were not added). We didn’t catch the first few until we got home so now we have to check that everything we requested is there before we leave the store. In addition, they are often (probably 25% of the time) 10-20 minutes late the promised delivery time.

For in-store orders (when we stand in line) it just takes forever to get through the line, though the orders are correct because they ask us what we want as they’re putting it all together.

Also when did salads stop going through...

Just something for them to think about. Change the food on your steam table more often. I ordered the cafe Rio salad with grilled chicken, black beans and rice. The rice was crunchy not soft, and the meat was crunchy as well, every few bites I would get a crunch and burnt taste. Grilled chicken is supposed to be soft, this had been on that table so long, and the chicken so crunchy it was like it had bones in it. I was unable to finish it due to taste of burnt food and the fact I had to keep spitting out the crunchy bone like fragments they called grilled chicken. When I go out to eat I'm paying enough money that my food should be better prepared. The guy that was taking the order was also very rude and quiet, so I had to keep asking him to repeat his questions, but instead of speaking louder he kept the same volume, then acted irritated when I asked him to repeat it. When I was paying for my meal, the cashier was more interested in playing with her co-worker than making sure my order was completed, I had to remind them I still had tacos on the flat grill. Not to impressed to say the least. I don't think I will be eating out around this town anymore as this kind of treatment is common among most of the restaurants here, from eat in to fast food, terrible service and not very good food for the prices they...