Review of Cilantro Mexican Grill

Updated review:

Cilantro has undergone major staffing changes, and with these comes a constant cycling of employees. We used to see the same people there all the time, but now it's always someone new. Something seems to be going on with how they changed how they manage and/or pay their employees... but why this matters for this review is it means they don't know what to do about gluten concerns anymore. They'll go through the motions and show of changing the gloves, but everything else, they don't know or do. ie they will change their gloves and then use the tortilla press (aka Wheat Central) handle to tighten them up against... and they no longer automatically grab cheese from the secret second container (because hands touching flour tortillas would have gone in to grab cheese from the main one)... and someone who was just preparing something else (ie burrito!) grabs the (celiac!) burrito bowl to move it out of their way and touches their wheaty gloves up against the food in the bowl....

As you can see how excited and happy we were to have such a speedy, healthy, nearby option for food... with the 5 star review below... we have really been trying to work with them and be reasonable and remind them kindly about all the excellent and safe practices they used to have... but it is getting tiresome, and we are feeling like it is just too stressful to continue to go there and have to act like the food police... Before they used to just know and do EVERYTHING right. So sad.....................

3 stars because if you hound them, and you know all the pitfalls they should be avoiding, it is still possible to get a GF meal here. But you will feel like a demanding jerkface as you do, and it isn't comfortable at all. Very awkward. But if you can deal and know the pitfalls (tortilla press, secondary burrito-hands touching your stuff, cheese, lettuce, or any new thing they may get that is grabbed with the hands), you can probably get safe food.

But if this weren't a place we used to go all the time, and we hadn't been conditioned to know where all the cross-contamination potential was being studiously avoided, I would guess we would not feel comfortable eating here, and thus we can no longer recommend it to others...........

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old review pre-2017:

Staff is super knowledgeable, and changes gloves between customers by default when you mention you need to eat GF. Everything is GF except for the flour tortillas. YES, you can even have the on-site fried tortilla chips - the fryer is a dedicated one.

This is the single cheapest healthy and satisfying GF option we have found near home. We go here All The Time.

Celiac friendly?

No