Pampa Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Edmonton

Thank you to Ramon Ruan for going above and beyond and making our evening truly exceptional.

Ramon was very attentive as was the rest of the staff and ensuring we had everything that we needed to enjoy our meal .

Pampas is a very unique restaurant, giving unlimited access to very large meat skewers that they bring and slice at the tables non-stop! Giving you access to sample many different flavours.

The mock tails and cocktails were some of the best I’ve ever had. Great flavor, fresh ingredients.

I deeply appreciated that some of the foods contained no canola oil or seed oils and instead were using olive oil such as in the zucchini and tomatoes and roasted garlic 🧄 . The mashed potatoes were fantastic, and I sincerely appreciated the beef tallow that was used rather than any manufactured fats or margarines.

They list the ingredients and all their foods which was so helpful to me.

The biggest part of the evening was why we had all come - 16 of us to pampas. Which was to celebrate two birthdays. My friend Ashley had ordered a very custom cake for her and her daughter - who have the same Birthday 🎂 which we were celebrating.

The staff had kept the cake in the fridge for us which was great! However the mood of the celebration was dampened and felt somber when we discovered Pampas has a policy that you really can’t bring in outside dessert - they charge a three dollar $3 cake cutting fee, which I understand was to offset the perceived loss of dessert sales and they have a cake waiver -

Having 16 people made that cake fee quite exorbitant and the mood of the celebration bleek. Ashley didn’t wanna pay $3 a person “cake cutting fee” - so she could celebrate her day.

It was disappointing and irritating to hear there was a perceived loss of profit from dessert after all the money we spent ordering drinks and dinners - over a Thousand dollars (Knowing most of us being as full as we were, would not have even purchased an in house dessert ) but we did wanna celebrate with our friend with the cake she mindfully had custom ordered.

As it was stated that we didn’t want to pay the three dollar cake fee, the desserts that pampas had were brought out !

Stunned and disappointed I asked to speak to the manager and Ruan promptly came to speak with me. He explained the restaurant policy which I understood.

Knowing that it’s important that staff follow store policy most of the time, I also appealed to upper management for exceptions to ensure the sense of service, ambiance and the importance of our joint celebration experience.

Everyone was relieved and overjoyed when Ruan and Ramon brought out the cake, waiver, and the plates but agreed to waive the cake cutting fee.

We were overjoyed. 😄 & the sense of celebration returned.

You see, Ashley had always told her daughter growing up that she “loved her to the moon and back” and the cake that was made was a sun and a moon …. Two specific cakes, one chocolate, and one vanilla put together

.. No other dessert would have the same meaning …. No matter how good Pampas desserts were they wouldn’t have been as meaningful.

What a wonderful, meaningful experience. Happy clients return. Thank you for making our celebration a...

On the morning of my birthday party (only celebrated birthday since I was a kid), many members of my extended family became sick. I asked people to get tested for covid. At 2 pm, I got a call that my extended family tested positive. My birthday party was canceled. I phoned this establishment and explained the situation. I made them aware I had purchased gift cards in order to bring my three children and one friend any time that they could recommend between 430-630. I did not know they took reservations because I've always just arrived and been served. I was informed I would be refused service if I came before 745. I have three children, im a young widow, and I'm night blind. When I arrived, I watched people arrive and ask if they could be "put on a list". I heard the hostess telling everyone that it would only be a 5 min wait. I was told I'd be refused service without a reservation while walk in customers were served before me. I told the manager that I only showed up because Costco would not return $300 in gift certificates. I told the man with the curled moustache that I would never gift these vouchers again, I'd never return again, and I would not recommend the place. He scolded me (I'm in my late 40s) by saying that I should have called weeks before and reserved. It's like nobody had the English skills to understand that my birthday party was canceled because the guests were sick and tested covid positive a few hours before my birthday event! I said it three times and got either phone silence or a blank stare that was followed by a programmed response. Because I could not be served until an hour before the restaurant closed, my friend could not wait to be fed and declined dinner. My three kids and I gave a $40 dollar tip to clear off the gift cards and I'm done with this place. They have poor management...unable to use discretion to help another human for the sake of being a good Samaritan. I got caught in the crosshair of a bad situation and every attempt to rescue the night was thwarted. As a medical professional who actively goes beyond minimal service on a daily basis....it's not acceptable to support a business who's people want gold standard service while not providing service in their jobs. Medical staff don't get giant tax free tips because of inflated meal costs and the expectation that a 15 percent gratuity is the lowest acceptable amount that should be paid on top of a bill where the average person is $60 to feed and has an hour to eat and leave. My fee schedual does not inflate and my job duties do not shrink-flate. I like myself when I treat people with empathy and kindness. Acting with kindness and critically thinking should not have a price tag. I don't think young people these days can do it. It's like technology and lack of social contact has bred a society of young narcissists that now are infiltrating every service industry. I'm very disappointed with the fack that I was not treated like I was a person. I was just a number and a means to a greedy end. It was like talking to programmed androids except AI is more sentient than people these days....

I was so looking forward to come back to Pampa as I haven't been able to in a long time and I always remembered this place being amazing so I brought with me my partner and members of his family. Due to preferences, I do not eat meat so I let the server know at the beginning that only myself would do the salad bar and everyone else would eat meat.

We were all having a great time until the server came to us and said to me "so we ended up having meat ?", to which I answered no. She proceeded to not believe me (which I can understand as I am sure some people try to pay cheaper and lie about it) and asked 3 more times and said that the GM told her I had meat. I have not seen this GM the whole time we were at the table, how would he know ? She could've asked the one wonderful lady who was bringing the meat at the table if I had taken any meat, they could've looked at the cameras if they really thought I was lying about it. She ended up going back to check with her GM or whoever and came back to me by my ear to tell me "sorry they mistook a lady at an other table and thought it was you."

This whole experience made me feel extremely uncomfortable, embarrassed me in front of my partner's family and ruined the whole experience for me.

Once again, I understand that people may try to pay cheaper saying they only had the salad bar which I would have no problem if the question was asked once, but being so insistent trying to make me admit something I didn't do and making me feel like a liar was very unprofessional.

Thank you to the lady who was bringing the meat to our table for the rest of the family to enjoy, she was very nice and wonderful and was always bringing whatever my family would ask. It would have been a 5 stars if it wasn't for the...