An ode to the (pork) salad days at Cafe Rio

One of the most tired jokes about Utah is our fondness for green Jell-O. I’m not sure how, exactly, but the jiggly grass-colored treat became synonymous with our people and our culinary preferences. Some claim we serve our chilled gelatin with shredded carrots, which is honestly insulting. There was even a green Jell-O pin traded during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. And while I like to think we take it in stride, it is kind of embarrassing that, food-wise, we’re best known for a mildly to very disgusting side dish.

In reality, Utah has long been a hotbed for food trends that catch fire and sometimes spread throughout the nation. Cookie delivery brands and drive-thru soda shops are having a moment, but before then, “Mexican” pork salads caught Utahns’ attention and held it in a chokehold for well over a decade.

At the end of the ’90s, a small fast-casual restaurant named Cafe Rio opened outside the Brigham Young University campus in Provo, Utah, where I grew up. It wasn’t the chain’s first location — that honor belonged to our southern Utah neighbor St. George. But it felt like the very first restaurant of its kind. Not really Mexican, in the authentic sense of the word; not really Tex-Mex, but something in between. Something new and distinctly Utah. Limey and cilantro-forward, with giant portions.

Word spread quickly, and before long, the line to order at the Provo Cafe Rio wrapped all the way around the restaurant’s interior and out the door. At any given time, one could expect to wait a minimum of 40 minutes to order a meal behind hundreds of patrons, at least half of whom you knew from church or school.

As you waited, you would hear the frequent yell of “FREE MEAL!” from the cooks and servers after someone presented a card with 10 stamps and earned a free entree. They even honored stamps spread across multiple cards, which was great, because we all had at least five different Cafe Rio stamp cards in our wallet at all times.

Once it was your turn to order, you would stand on your tiptoes to yell your order over the glass separating you from the Cafe Rio team. You’d specify black or pinto beans, white or Spanish rice, large chunks of lettuce or small. Maybe you’d order a smothered burrito, a chicken-filled quesadilla that I remember weighing at least three pounds, or the most iconic of all early aughts Utah dishes — the pork salad.

Served in an aluminum take-out container, the base of the Cafe Rio salad was a massive flour tortilla, made fresh and cooked to the point of golden blisters. Then a layer of cilantro-lime rice, black or pinto beans, and a healthy portion of candy, I mean pork. The rumor was that the pork was marinated in Dr Pepper or maybe Coca-Cola or maybe something even more powerful and addicting. It was salted just enough to balance the sweet marinade and served dripping in juice. The meat was then covered with bits of lettuce, a large scoop of guacamole, a sprig or two of cilantro, and some crispy tortilla strips. The orderer was handed a not-small container of cilantro-lime dressing and a soda cup to fill at the nearby fountain.

This was the food of my people. For years, we ate it for every special occasion. Family birthday dinners. Lunch with friends. First dates. Last meals for departing missionaries, and first meals home for returning missionaries.

If you were going out to eat, you were going to Cafe Rio.

We’d sit at the paint-splattered tables and chairs, scarf the food as quickly as we could and hurry out of the restaurant bloated and a little nauseous to make room for the other people in line.

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Before long, other Utah-Mex chains popped up and starting serving their own versions of the smothered burrito, chicken quesadilla and pork salad. Costa Vida was nearly identical and led to a lawsuit that was eventually settled in 2007. Bajio had an altogether different approach with a green chili chicken salad but belonged in the Cafe Rio genre because it was served with a tortilla and featured rice and beans. We called all these salads Cafe Rio salads, much like we call all tissues Kleenex or all jeans Levi’s. It was always the first and the best.

In 2004, Cafe Rio began expanding out of state, which was both cause for celebration and sadness. Like when your favorite band produces a hit song, and you’re proud you knew them before they went mainstream, but sad they’re not your special thing anymore. I was thankful, though, that these out-of-state locations existed when I lived in Colorado and in Washington, D.C., because a craving for a Cafe Rio salad can only be satiated with a Cafe Rio salad.

But we all believed our hometown Cafe Rio was the best Cafe Rio, even though for a while, each Cafe Rio was exactly the same down to the dried chili peppers hanging from the walls.

As with all good things, the newness of the Cafe Rio craze eventually diminished. The stamp cards morphed into points on an app. Instead of yelling on tiptoes, most ordering is now done online. And the nation is awash in chain restaurants that try (often, badly) to do what Cafe Rio does.

I haven’t been inside a Cafe Rio for years. Occasionally I’ll be at an event catered by the company and enjoy a self-constructed salad, which makes me think wistfully of those (pork) salad days of the late ’90s spent inside Cafe Rio with all my friends and family. And I still sometimes hear “FREE MEAL!” in my dreams.