Walk downtown and look around. If you are paying attention, you will find restaurants lined up and down almost every block. There are many places for diners to take their money and every kind of culinary offering from fast food, to gourmet. With that kind of competition and this type of economy, restaurant managers need to know now more than ever that consistency is important to make sure more of those dollars end up in their cash registers. With that said, I have to report that my most recent visit to Rio Grande in Lodo was a bit disappointing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It was good, but just not as yummy as I have experienced in the past or quite as good as I was expecting. After I stood up on my soapbox and told the world how much I loved this place, I got a mediocre lunch that was not particularly impressive. I still like Rio Grande and I will still come back, but that last lunch will do nothing to increase the interval between visits.

In defense of Rio Grande, my visit did occur later in the afternoon than on most other visits and the walk over was accompanied by a strong, cold wind. Besides, they still are one of the few Mexican restaurants where I am certain both the beans and the rice are vegetarian, and I know I can still find both a tasty table salsa and another salsa that will challenge my love of heat. Nonetheless, the floors were dirty and at least my lunch was nothing really special, even if my girlfriend did rave about her veggie fajitas.

Rio Grande is one of those Mexican restaurants that still bakes its entrees before serving. Their table salsa is adequate and tasty enough for most people, but their Salsa Atomica is on of the hottest salsas put on a restaurant table in this city. It is nice to know that a place can provide good flavor and a good product in a Mexican restaurant even without the lard and the animal protein. Still, as I said before, there is a lot of competition out there and it seems like more and more restaurateurs throw their hats in the ring everyday. I have seen good, albeit trendy, restaurants come and go, (Does anyone remember the Mexicali Cafe?), and, if you don’t stay on top of your game in the restaurant business, there is always an eager group of pretenders to the thrown ready to take a turn at trying on the crown.

We went to Rio Grande the night of the 2007 Rockies vs Phillies playoff game. It was very busy but we got in quick and were well attended to by Doug our server.

The food was amazing… from the salsa all the way down to the en tree’s.

There’s lots of Mexican choices in the Denver area… we’ll go here again and again!