The Cafe Rio Phenomenon

A Fajita Grilled Steak salad at Cafe Rio

Of course this topic is only relevant to people who live in, may have lived in or visited Utah, as this chain is local, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.

Cafe Rio is this Mexican grill that seems to be enormously popular in Utah. I use the word “phenomenon” because I’m not really quite sure why it’s so popular and so addictive. Why is it so?

I was introduced to Cafe Rio back in 2000 or 2001, by my buddy Ty, at the Midvale location, which was the only one I knew of. Pretty good food, I thought, but didn’t really grab a hold of me.

Fast forward about 2 years… I start to notice that my sisters eat Cafe Rio religiously. They CRAVE it. (But really, women are known to crave, right? Like chocolate… I still don’t get that one). I am now aware of a Cafe Rio in St. George as well as in Provo, UT, in addition to the Midvale location.

Fall 2003 / Winter 2004: I’ve found since moving up to work in the Art department (where lunch is more leisurely than it was in my previous department) that a ton more people are addicted to Cafe Rio than I had ever dreamed. (there are now two more locations, one in Draper and one in South Jordan). When we’d go out to lunch as a team or to celebrate someone’s birthday, Cafe Rio was a popular choice, and this is when I started eating this food again (I usually avoid it since lines are horrendously long there most of the time).

I start to become addicted to this stuff. It’s hard to resist the fajita grilled chicken and steak, especially in salads. Think: freshly made tortilla with melted cheese, topped with beans and rice, lettuce, diced onions and tomatoes (which they call salsa), tortilla chips, your choice of meat, and guacamole, with a side of creamy tomatillo dressing (I haven’t tried the cilantro-lime vinaigrette). Mmmmm….

Once my sisters were making a “Cafe Rio” run and asked my brother Dan if he wanted anything, to which he replied “A salad with no lettuce”, heh. Of course my sisters were embarrassed to order it, but he’s onto to something. I only eat the lettuce to get it out of the way– it’s the rest of the salad that I enjoy so much. And these salads can’t be good for you, hehe.

As much as I enjoy these salads, they don’t have quite the flavor that I would term “addictive”. With Korean food, I crave it and then when I eat it, I almost can’t help but smile because it’s so dang tasty. Cafe Rio, while good, isn’t that kind of good– which is why I can’t understand why I crave it. It never satisfies like some of the other things I crave do (even Beto’s California Burrito is more satisfying and a helluva lot cheaper).

Regardless of my own enjoyment of Cafe Rio… why the heck is it so popular? I mean there are some guys who are addicted to it, but the place just fills up with women, often fairly yuppy women. It’s always packed at lunch and dinner, and there’s never not a line. It’s a menace to parking lots wherever it goes, not to mention people’s wallets and waist lines. What is it they put in this food to get people hooked?