Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant

It was my first visit to Rio Grande approaching the restaurant made me a little leery. Outside the restaurant there was a painted statue of a burro, but the ears had been broken off. The door handle had been replaced and it’s replacement looked like it had been jimmy-rigged.

I was expecting to enter a dive.

However—and thankfully—first impressions were misleading.

The lights were dimmed and my party was immediately seated in the smoking section.

The restaurant was tastefully and pleasantly decorated with soft Latin music playing. The tables were clean and the waitstaff was courtesy.

Immediately upon being served our waiter appeared with the standard offering of free tortilla chips (still warm) and salsa and took our drink order.

The salsa was fresh—not canned—and was among the best I’ve tasted. It had just a hint of a bite of heat, though was too hot for the three year old in our party who dove into the chips and salsa immediately. She complained immediately of the heat and wanted something to drink right then (though the adults in the party did not notice or mind the slight heat).

Literally within seconds our waiter had our drink order. Once she had a cold drink to offset the heat she was digging again into the chips.

We were seated near the bar. The bar contains a large screen television which was tuned to a Telemundo televised soccer match.

The menu was not as extensive as with the chain Mexican restaurants I’ve visited (Chi-Chis and Del Rios), but it was the prices were certainly more reasonable and the general consensus of the members of the party was that the food was comparable.

There was only a brief wait after we were brought our drinks until our waiter took our order.

There wait for our food was less than I expected.

The waiter replaced drinks before they were half empty.

He did a suburb job and the only thing I wish he would have done differently was to take a desert order before bringing the check. However he took up the check and brought the deserts in a very short time.

With drinks and excluding desert expect to spend between $10-$15 per dinner entree.

There is also a large lunch menu with prices about half of dinner entrees.