Costa Vida

i go to this costa vida at least once a month. I buy quesadilla mostly. After the first time, I started telling them please spread the cheese till the edge and cut it properly. I say this because it is not done properly. Especially cutting is worse. They have a proper tool to cut this. But they use the spatula to flip for cutting this. This does not cut it properly. In these time, only once it has been cut using proper one. i can understand this when they are busy. Today, there was hardly any crowd. I was the only one in line ordering. The quesadilla was not even cut. It is really frustrating. Although the food is good, things like this make it bad

I’m not a big Unilocal user but I felt compelled to give this location a review. I agree with many other reviewers that this place seems like it is run by a bunch of young kids. They must be running on really tight margins because they hardly give you anything in your salad. They were very chinchy and not very willing to even give extra lettuce. Not really impressed. I love Costa vida but honestly I’ll drive elsewhere to get Costa in the future.

Costa Vida is, with a few (tiny) variations, exactly the same as Café Rio. If you like gratuitous gossip, here’s a tidbit: it was founded by a former CR employee and actually resulted in a big law suit. Well, the suit is now settled, but the jury is still out about whether or not you should eat here.
The Good:
–The food is usually fresh and the flavor is pretty good. If you like Café Rio, nearly everything on the menu is IDENTICAL. The shrimp and grilled chicken are both slightly better at Costa Vida. The beverage selection is better at Café Rio.
–The fresh-​cooked tortillas are yummy, (but they’re a calorie bomb)!
–You can order half size salads – nice for smaller appetites. Not so nice on the wallet, though. They’re only a dollar or two cheaper for much less food.
–This location is often empty, so no line (more in a second on this)…
The Bad:
–Messy food prep area. Always. Grab a rag and wipe it down! A mop won’t kill you!
–Undisciplined, mostly teen employees who don’t seem to care much. There’s no hustle, no smile, and a touch of attitude.
–When they DO have a long line, walk away. They are nowhere near as efficient as Café Rio in moving people through the lines. This has everything to do with the «whatever» attitude of the employees. They get paid either way and they don’t seem to care. A good manager would make a world of difference here, but leadership seems to be lacking.
If given the choice, I prefer Café Rio for their quicker service and cleaner restaurant, but this Costa Vida gets a hearty «meh» from us. We’ll eat there when close by, but we don’t go out of our way for it.

It’s not the worst food I’ve had, but it’s not something I will be coming back for at any point in time. It took almost 30 mins to have the ice replaced on the machine after they were alerted of the issue, so we were almost done with our meal by then.
Furthemore, our stomachs did not agree with whatever was added to the food (whether it was cooked right or it was old is unclear), so we had to spend some additional time in the toilet that evening.

Absolutely the worst location ever!!! This place is ran by a bunch of punk kids with horrible customer service that should probably not have a job anywhere. I think what it really boils down to is really bad management. Bad hiring, bad training, bad everything.

Horrible customer service!!! It is run completely by rude, unsupervised teenagers. I got take out and realized that not only was my food cold but it wasn’t what I ordered. I won’t be back!

I like Costa Vida, I’ve been to several, I know exactly what I’m going to get each time. I visited this location before shopping at Costco and ordered the daily special (it was a Monday, so the small grilled chicken salad). It was really tasty, although I prefer my sweet pork!!!
I’ve decided to make the switch to Costa Vida for two reasons: 1. you accumulate points towards free meals much faster and 2. they don’t get skimpy with the meat. I wish they had a little more beverage variety (not a huge fan of horchata), but that’s really my only «complaint.»
This particular location was a little confusing for me design wise — I walked straight to the bathrooms thinking that would get me to the line. I might sound like a real idiot in admitting that, but you know, yolo.
I’ll definitely be back!

They consistently have great food. I especially love the chicken salad, chicken burrito, and chicken tortilla soup. I also sometimes like to get an extra order of tortillas to eat plain. I recommend not going their within 15 to 30 minutes of their closing time though. The last time I was there at that time me and four or five others were disappointed that they ran out of chicken and couldn’t cook some up because they clean up the grill before rather than after they close.

The salads are no more or less healthy than their burritos, tacos or anything else, but I guess you can get the self satisfaction that you opted for a salad over a burrito. I don’t know, if that’s your thing. The food is good. It’s cafeteria style, so you’ll wait in a line and point at thing you want shoved into a tortilla the size of George Muresan’s dinner plate. (Google him, he’s very ugly, ex-​NBA star, did a movie with Billy Crystal back in the day) Not classy, not totally sloppy either, but you’ve probably already been here and know exactly what this place looks like, so why are you reading this?

If I could give this restaurant less than 1 star I would. They do not deserve it. I have eaten at this location at least 15 times in the last 6 months and every single time is the same story. Why do I go back? Location. That is the only reason. I live right here.
The problem? I have never seen so many high school kids work so slowly. The restaurant is always well staffed, but they seem to wander without doing anything.
The staff is unkempt. It runs at least ¹⁄₃ the pace of any Café Rio I’ve been to. The managers on duty are typically right there in front BS-​ing with the employees and doing absolutely nothing to hurry the service along.
Don’t eat here if you’re in a hurry.

This is my second time here and I’ll definitely be back for more. The staff and food are wonderful. I’m picky with my food & they took every request & prepared it perfectly. Even gave extra of what I did want.