Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Albuquerque

This place was one of the worst restaurants I've been to in a few years.(I do not write that lightly.)

We made dinner reservation 3 days in advance of a friend's bday celebration. We opened up "rewards cards" and "unlocked" a food offer that the waiter did not understand or did not care to load for the pricing. Drinks were ordered with the "full experience." When we first arrived it was nearly dead in the restaurant. The waiter said it takes about 45 minutes for the full rotation of cuts to come. We helped ourselves to the salad bar (they call it market place). We saw low end meat cuts repeat to our table. We waited on sirloin, filet and pork chop that the bday girl wanted. We were there for nearly 2 hours but absolutely noticed that our table of 4 women were getting routinely passed over for a larger party of all men. And if like to add here, that we were getting this shaving at millimeters thin like only the cooked portion that touched the fire was being shredded. You needed several (Several) cuts to feel like you actually tasted the juices/flavors of the meat. I actually left there still hungry because we were not getting any protein. This has never happened to me at any Brazilian restaurant EVER. I've normally been provided an ounce-ish of meat with color and I can taste the flavor of the food. When waiter asked is there something you're waiting for, we said we have had any of the finer cuts or the pork chop and he said "let me go see where those are" and never came back. A pork chop eventually came to the table and it was charred into blackness. It was inedible. At I've point the waiter forgot the birthday girls second cocktail and we just asked it bd removed from the bill when we were wrapping up. I noticed immediately that they did not apply the discounts to the meal either which allegedly comes with making the dinner reservation and placing the words "best of Brazil" in the special interest box. I mentioned the "ad" in the online marketing and attached to the reservation and it only comes with "the full experience" but he never applied the discounts. My friends were so annoyed after watching 40ish minutes of the table service not really coming to our table when the restaurant added people and we strongly sensed they stop serving you even when the green is on each table setting so you wrap up your meal. They did not let me discuss it with the waiter about the discounts not being applied and the rewards not being added. I decided I'd reach out from home via email as their website suggests. What a joke!!! They don't have customer service that way either. They ignored the discounts, dud not add the rewards points to either reward card AND I contacted Fogo corporate with my screenshots of the $480 meal receipt. It has time date, waiter, etc which was easily cross referenced with the time of our reservation and when we booked the reservation and signed up for the rewards. They sent a one-line email back stating we signed up AFTER we had our dinner. Simply FALSE. I responded back to corporate with the screenshots of our reservation bookings, and timestamped emails from the fogo "unlocked" offers which show 8:04AM morning of our reservations. And they did not make good one the taste of Brazil in the initial reservation (which should have made each meal $49, they did not make good on the buy I've get one 50% off unlocked offers NOR the birthday offer unlocked that offered my friend $25 off her meal for her birthday) they ignored All 3 offers and Still did not put the rewards points on. I'm Convinced they buy their reviews and self post. To recap: $500 for 4 dinners that left us sitting for 2+ hours, we left hungry without adequate protein shavings at Brazilian chop house, waiter forgot bday's 2nd cocktail, pork chop was charred to coal, AND corporate ignored all discounts available Including not putting our rewards points on the cards. Ohhhh, and the fish product inside the "market/salad bar" was not to temp... The ice was not thick enough under it and had melted. Never trust fish sitting...

My husband and I were excited to come here yesterday for date night for Abq Restaurant Week I made the reservation for yesterday (Saturday ).I noted on the Abq Restaurant Week website under the Fogo de Chao menu that we needed to mention at the time we placed our order that we were there for the Restaurant Week promotion so we made sure to do that. We arrived about 5 minutes prior to our reservation time and were seated promptly. Prior to ordering, we mentioned to our server who took our order that we were there for the Restaurant Week promotion. She said she didn't know anything about anything going on for Restaurant Week but that we could order their Best of Brazil promotion for $49 per person which is what we did. My husband ordered water & I ordered 1 bottle of Negro Modelo.We went to the Market Table and when we got back to our table our water & beer had been delivered. There was no glass for my beer and one was not offered. The food was good but not great. The bottom sirloin and the roasted cheese with honey were fantastic. Our server who we placed our order with never came and asked how we were doing but another woman (floor manager maybe) stopped by to check on us a couple of times. The restaurant wasn't very busy while we were there but then again, it was before 5pm. After flagging down our server, we asked for our bill. When it arrived my husband and I noticed that we were charged $61 per person, not $49 for what we ordered. I want to mention that the higher priced option included their Premium Meats which we did not want and did not receive. We didn't see our server but saw the floor manager(?) and waved her over. We explained to her the problem with our bill and mentioned that we came originally for their Restaurant Week promotion. She told us that she didn't know anything about Restaurant Week and then left to straighten out our bill. When she returned, she said she still was trying to figure out what was going on with our bill. She then said she found out that they were participating in Restaurant Week but that we had to have mentioned it when we ordered. We explained to her that we did mention it before we ordered but our server said she didn't know about it. She then asked me where I got my beer and that they don't allow people to bring in outside alcohol. I told her that I ordered it and I was appalled that anyone would think I brought a bottle of beer into a restaurant. After she left, the restaurant manager came and told us that she would fix our bill & said "that beer wasn't on your bill! I'm going to put it on there!" I said that was fine, as I ordered it and I didn't realize that it wasn't on the bill. I felt like she was accusing me of trying to steal my single beer. She then left and came back with the corrected bill. She told us that she would tell staff about the Restaurant Week promotion and that we were supposed to have mentioned it when we ordered. I said that we did in fact mention it but our server said she didn't know anything about it. The manager looked at me, interrupted me and loudly talked over me to say that the Restaurant Week promotion was actually $6 more per person than what we paid. I said that maybe it's because it comes with dessert. She responded by saying in an incredibly rude tone "You want me to give you dessert? Is that want you want?" My husband and I were overwhelmed with her hostility but calmly said we didn't want dessert (we didn't) that we were just mentioning what the difference was. At no time during our visit were we apologized to for the bill mixup or anything else. I also want to mention that at no point were we rude or unpleasant or argumentative. That was solely on the part of the staff. Our entire experience was terrible and to add to it, being accused of bringing in my own beer, trying to get my beer for free, and trying to get free dessert, it was most definitely the worst dining experiences we have ever had. Thank you Fogo de Chao for ruining what was supposed to have been a wonderful date night dinner for my...

We have been to this location three times and experienced three completely different levels of service. The first time two years ago, everything was amazing. The second time, a couple of months later, it wasn’t as good and was fairly mediocre overall. Last night was the most recent and most definitely the last time that we will ever come to this location.

To start, our server was so incredibly apathetic that he didn’t even hand us the menus once he found out we had already been to Fogo de Chão before. Whenn we asked him for a second drink later on in the evening, he acted completely put off and bothered by our request and from then on, we didn’t see him again for the rest of the night.

As to the food, the polenta fries were hard and flavorless, as though they were left over from the day before. The mashed potatoes were OK, but also rather bland. The meat was the biggest disappointment of all. Every piece of beef that we were served was devoid of any seasoning, not even a grain of salt. Some pieces were so tough or full of fat that they were inedible. The side dish / salad bar was the best part of the whole experience.

What was extremely unnerving however, was this tall bearded man who was an employee. He was visibly drunk and very loud as he went from table to table, offering a “special deal” where he would give a $25 gift card for every five star rating posted online. He also explained that if a person posted four separate five star reviews, did he would give them $100 in gift cards to the restaurant. He added that if they could also mention the name of an employee in their reviews, it would be most helpful.

This has to explain the huge number of glowing five star reviews on yelp and on Google because I honestly don’t understand how anyone could sit through the experience we had last night and rave about it. In fact, two of the tables next to us made very similar comments to what I’m describing here about the lack of quality in the food, and the lack of seasoning on the meat. One of those actually filled out the online reviews to get free gift cards, which really boggles my mind because they were also complaining about how bad the food was yet I guess for them free food is better than none?

Even more disturbing, was what this same employee had to say to the table behind us. He was making disgusting comments about Asian women, as well as nasty comments about the wait staff. He went so far as to say that he works harder than any of the servers, and that if any server wasn’t doing a good job, he would try to get them fired.

There were no hosts at the door when we left, nor could we find anyone who looked like a manager. I did voice my concerns about this man to one of the female staff members, and she said she honestly didn’t know what to do with what I had to say. Honestly, it was a terrible experience and one that I will never repeat by going back.

I’m posting this in the hopes that others will stay away from this location to save your hard earned money. $60 per person is far too much money for the lack of service and the deplorable quality of...