Rio Cantina

I have been here a few times for the late night bar/dance scene and for the school of rock performance show as well. The place is good for live music with a good size stage and decent acoustics. When we went on a weekend night, it was very packed and a challenge to get the drinks at the bar or to even get around. The music did not seem loud enough or at least as you would expect in a night club and the dance floor had just a couple of entrances to get in and out so you always get pushed around which is not pleasant. The drinks were hit or miss like any bar and either a good strong pour once or a watered down mess once. The good is your typical bar food and nothing to rave about. Overall, it is just an ok club that you can go in the weekends to have some fun dancing if you are lazy to drive all the way to DC.

Living in Ashburn, weekends can be less than exciting at times, especially if you don't like driving.  For those weekends when you are bored, but are not up to the long hike to DC, Rio is a viable option.  They play a decent mix of Merengue, Bachata, Reggaeton, and a little Salsa.  The crowd is a mix, a lot more middle agers than you'd hope for, but definitely plenty of younger people too (Omg, will people start referring to me as a middle ager one day?  Gah!).  The cover is $10.  The crowd is by far mostly Central American, so sometimes they do a few Rock en Espanol songs back to back, which is less than desirable for me.  Generally speaking, however, the music selection is decent.  

Rio definitely gets packed, so it's nice that they have nice high ceilings.  There is also plenty of seating for those of you who actually go to a club with intentions to use those things (not sure why you'd ever do that).  One thing I will say is that it is hot as Hades in there!  I mean, you feel like you're standing by the threshold of the underworld sometimes.  I am just about certain that they do not use a/c in this place.  They only use fans.  I'm not sure where they think they are, but ain't no breeze passing by to compensate for their failure to actually turn on the a/c.  It's not exactly a tropical climate that we have in this area.  

You wouldn't want to wear anything too nice here because of the heat.  You will sweat your butt off.  Either use lots of hair spray or don't spend too much time on your hair for your Rio nights.  Don't say I didn't warn ya.  Anyhow, dress is pretty casual.  You don't have to wear heels (another one of those "I really have no idea why you would go to a club and actually do that" moments).  Some people do, some don't.  You will even see sneakers.  

They have concerts too, which is nice.  It's not like we get that sort of thing in the Ashburn/Sterling area often.  Again, it's something to do, something to make you feel better about the fact that you live so far from DC that you don't actually matter anymore (everyone knows that once you get past Annandale and Fairfax, everything else becomes a big boring blur).  Oh yeah,during the summer sometimes they have sleazy themes in which I do not partake.  For example, bikini night, foam parties, etc.  There's plenty of sleaze-osity to be had if you want that sort of thing, but it is definitely not a place where you feel out of place if you are a normal person (as opposed to a sleaze, of course).  

In short, I've enjoyed plenty of good times here.  It's quick and easy to get to for us suburbanites.  To be honest, I don't think I would have survived life In Ashburn without it, so thanks, Rio.  I have had some nice times with you, both dancing and getting a couple of good laughs at my surroundings, if you will.  If you don't know what that means, you'll find out in due time.