Cafe Rio Fresh Modern Mexican

I’ve eaten at Café Rio over a hundred times and tried all their Denver locations. I was really excited when they opened one in Colorado Springs, since it’s closer to where I live. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is how often the staff changes. I see new faces almost every time I visit. I’ve been to this location about a dozen times since it opened, and I always order the same thing the salad. I usually ask for the tortilla extra crispy and have it run through the oven, but only when they’re not busy. This last visit, I asked the same as always, and a guy named Mark with a ponytail said he couldn’t because it might burn then added he’d do it “one last time.” It’s never burned in the past hundred visits, so that was odd. The salads also tend to have a ton of lettuce but very little meat.

So excited this location opened up! We used to go to Cafe Rio in Utah. I got the Sweet pork barbacoa bowl. Everything was fresh and tasty like we remembered. Would come here again!

Mostly disappointed in the portion size of the drinks. Normally standard medium drink is at least 14 Oz, a large should be 32 oz. But here their large is just about 8 oz! After all the ice they put in. Since they cram 3 inches of ice in a 4 inch kids sizes cup. Worse is that there’s not a no ice option when ordering online.

My husband and I ordered two of the large Cafe Rio salads. They have always been so good, but today they were disgusting!! The tortilla was supposed to have cheese melted onto it but there was no cheese. The sweet barbacoa pork is always shredded and delicious. This time we each got a baseball sized glob of fat with hardly any pork attached! Just a glob in the salad. The lettuce in both salads was old and slimy! And last but not least the cilantro wasn't even chopped up. It was thrown into the salads in long strands!! Worst $50 delivery meal we have EVER gotten! Straight into the garbage because we were actually afraid of getting sick.🤢

I am giving 5 stars because we had a very nice experience. The employees were so attentive and excited about making everyone feel welcome. The music was a bit loud but I think they were trying to fix it. There is nice seating outside. The inside was beautiful. We were surprised that a bean and cheese burrito was $16 but the ingredients are fresh. That may explain. The freshness matters to us.