Lighthearted / entertainment: Cafe Rio

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SamSpade
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Lighthearted / entertainment: Cafe Rio

Post by SamSpade »

In light of the current pandemic and relative attempt to return to normalcy, Cafe Rio Mexican Grill made a series of new TV/digital commercials that are pretty entertaining.

Cafe Rio is 23 years old and has its roots in St. George, Utah. It was sold to the HB Boys Franchisee of Burger King in the early part of the 2000s but is apparently its own company again. There are franchised locations throughout the western U.S. now.
klkla
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Re: Lighthearted / entertainment: Cafe Rio

Post by klkla »

Funny you mention this chain. I stumbled upon one of their stores for the first time last week and liked it. It's set up similar to a Chipotle except they make the tortillas fresh in front of customers and have a little more choices of protein.

The commercial is pretty funny.
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Re: Lighthearted / entertainment: Cafe Rio

Post by storewanderer »

Interesting that HB Boys owned Cafe Rio. HB Boys has been developing Costa Vida locations in recent years. Cafe Rio and Costa Vida are so similar that I can't really tell the two apart. I wonder why HB Boys sold Cafe Rio then started to grow the Costa Vida brand. The salsas do taste different at Costa Vida but everything else sure seems to be the same right down to the food packaging in the round tin containers and food prep where items get "run through the oven" after meat/cheese is applied.

Another big difference beyond the tortillas between Cafe Rio/Costa Vida and Chipotle is they use thin pounded chicken breasts that are marinated, seasoned, and then charbroiled and sliced in good sized rectangles while Chipotle seems to use a chicken meat mixture that sometimes tastes grilled and other times tastes rather boiled. I find Cafe Rio/Costa Vida to offer a far superior, fresher product to Chipotle. Chipotle certainly has faster service though.
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