Why Cafe Rio is 1 Bajillion Times Better In Arizona

My blog has been feeling a little lonely lately because I don't get very many comments. Now I know that Google Reader is awesome, and it really makes my own comments lack, but I have decided to make a new year's resolution...4 months early. I will make more comments on your blog if you will comment on mine. Additionally, I have decided to discontinue the Smoochy series since it seemed a little unpopular. Now if any of you disagree with this decision, Speak Up! Let your voice be heard.

Now for the real issue here...
Have any of you ever seen that episode of King of Queens when Doug and Carrie get shafted by their friends Deacon and Kelly, so they go to Home Depot to pick up on other couples?
"What were we thinking, trying to find couples in Lumber? Now Paint, that is a virtual meat market!"

And here is my point...The Cafe Rio on Gilbert and Baseline is the Mormon Meat Market for Young Couples with Babies. I know that if we ever want to make friends in our similar situation, we just need to hang out there for a few hours.

So for all of you who may not have heard of Cafe Rio, I believe it started in Utah and its mostly just there. Every Cafe Rio I've been to in Utah (which I think is 3 locations (that I've been to)) is so annoyingly busy. Cafe Rio is great food, but way too obnoxious to want to wait an hour surrounded by preppy BYU students trying to impress their dates (yes, I did used to be one of them.) I even wanted Cafe Rio one time SO bad that I waited in the hour-long line BY MYSELF (this was before I knew about their take out.) There is just nothing like the sweet pork. But I couldn't bring myself to justify standing in the hour-long line when I could get a similar product down the street at Costa Vida. Which is still pretty good, although their lettuce is always SO wet! So Aaron and I would go there when we were jonesing for some spicy ranch.

But here in Arizona, the Cafe Rio is always empty! Except for a few Mormon couples and Hispanic people, we had the place to ourselves. And there is this teenage kid who works there who is just so stinkin' nice!

The first time we went there was in March when we were down here looking for places to live. I was hugely pregnant and the girl who was the cashier was a sweet young girl who started asking me all about pregnancy and then revealed to me that she was pregnant and scared. And that kid, we'll call him Carlos, was standing behind her just beaming and glowing with his friendly light.
The second time he was there too, and still nice.
And Today, the third time, he was STILL there, our cashier. And we had two Cafe Rio cards, with about 5 stamps each that we wanted to combine to get a free meal. So he took one of the cards, stamped it dead, and then gave me back the other card that still had 5 stamps on it. Furthermore, they gave us two more stamps for our meals, even though one was free. So now we just have to buy a couple more meals to get ANOTHER free meal. Carlos, I hope you never die.

So we walked in, right up to the counter at peak hours, got GREAT service with a smile, got tons of free stamps and a free meal and ate at our leisure at a clean table that we picked from many. And of course, the food was delish.

P.S. Happy Birthday Napoleon.