Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant
Austin, TX 78701
Phone: (512) 476-8300
10/20/2007 Posted by mpm167
Seeing such strongly worded for-and-against arguments for this restaurant has led me to sign up and post the first of my own. I am a long-time downtown resident who loves to cook and eat out and besides experiencing pretty much every downtown restaurant, I have visited Rio several times since they opened over a year ago. They had good food but some of the other elements were shaky when they began but have happily improved steadily. If you visited a year ago and didn't care for the soundtrack or thought their wait-staff was a bunch of newbies, I'd suggest giving them another shot because they really do have excellent margaritas and a refreshingly relaxed vibe for a downtown restaurant. A couple of other notes is that they're active in the neigborhood and that counts for a lot in my book. People knock the place because Rio got their start in Colorado and then they walk down the street to P.F. Chang's or something. To me, being local is a mindset more than an address (though my understanding is the the owners are originally from Austin). Second, is that the place is big which can mean with a normal crowd it can still feel empty and with a capacity crowd on Friday or Saturday it can get loud. Someone mentioned or else implied that it's popular with women - I don't know if it is or isn't (I'm a guy) but it's popular with birthday parties and bachelorette parties because it can accomodate people...and yes I guess they're mostly girls. Third is that they have a good private room in the back if you need it for meetings, etc... and don't want to go to someplace so formal as Louie's 106's downstairs or something similar. I'm in several organizations and have used them at different times and it has always went over well with attendees. So in conclusion...I give it four stars because this is Austin and competition is stiff. Bright points are the Margaritas and Sunday brunch. If you haven't been in a while - you should check it out again.
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