Texas de Brazil - Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

I wanted to write about an experience my family and I had a few weeks ago at this restaurant. TLDR; it was one of the most expensive yet truly disappointing dining experiences we've had.

We went to Texas de Brazil to celebrate a birthday and to just have the whole family together. There were eight of us there so at around $50 a person, it was a $450+ dinner. We made a reservation online - there were plenty available for this Sunday night, all the way up to 10PM - so we thought okay awesome, they won't be crowded and we'll get the full experience (it was the first time trying an american/brazilian steakhouse like this for many of us). Our reservation was for 7:30PM.

When we got there, we were seated at the very front of the restaurant. Our server was nice, seemed personable, and asked us if we were there celebrating anything. He also talked about how the dining experience there worked, getting to try all different kinds of meats in various cooking styles with a large salad/sides bar. We were excited to dig in.

As the carvers start to come around, they keep telling us "Oh this is the last of it!" even though we were not the only ones in the restaurant. Last of the flank steak, last of the filet that wasn't cooked until it was nearly black. Those were two of our favorite things that we just got pretty much scraps of. Safe to say at this point, we were all still starving and wanting more food.

One of the carvers comes out to tell us they're very low on meat and that the kitchen was closing - this was 8PM, we had just been seated 30 minutes before. Why would you accept a reservation for 7:30PM if you planned to shut down the kitchen right after?

We asked that exact question to another server - our server was no where to be found - and she had an incredibly horrible attitude with us. She said that they were shutting down the kitchen because there was no 8:30PM reservation. That if there was another party coming in, they'd make more meat to serve them and to serve us. When we asked why this was because we had hardly gotten any food at all, she threw her hands up, rolled her eyes, and said "I'm not y'all's server" and stormed away. Talk about a welcoming environment when, again, we paid so much money to be there. As she's not being helpful at all for us, I see behind her that they're taking down the salad and the side bar. So at this point, there's literally no food left for us to even pick at and it's only 8PM.

Our server finally comes back and we essentially have to beg for more cheese rolls so we can fill up on something. We expressed our disappointment to the server while also understanding it's not necessarily his fault, it's a horrible policy this location or all TDB locations have. Also, remember how he asked if we were celebrating anything? Like, how most places offer up a small dessert or some other gesture to say thanks for coming in? When asked about it, he said "Oh no, we don't do anything on the house."

Later in the week, my mother-in-law reached out to corporate about the situation. She hoped to rightsize the situation so we could try another Texas de Brazil location in good faith and hopefully have a good time. Instead of being helpful, they disregarded her and offered a $20 gift card. There was no real acknowledgment of the situation, apology, gratitude for our patience with what happened, etc. An offer of $20 to make things right on a $450+ dinner is about 4.5%.

We are incredibly disappointed with the experience at the restaurant and how the situation has been handled since then. We'd urge you all not to spend your money celebrating anything at...

Just went tonight (6-29-25) for our anniversary dinner. By far the worst dining experience of my life.

Started fine at first. We were seated quickly. Waiter was nice and explained everything to us since it was our first time. I asked if they had any medium well meat. He says yes and that there will be a variety of meats at different temperature on offer. Drinks were quick. There was hot food (gratin potatoes, rice, soup) and salad/charcuterie things to the side. All of it was very tasty. Amazing salad bar.

To note: they have signs on the table that you flip over to indicate you’re ready for or are finished with your meat.

Everything was great up until the meat course. We wanted to finish our salad before moving in to meat. I was fixing to get up and grab new plates for us since we were finally ready.

We were bombarded with people before we could even get up and get new plates, let alone flip our table signs over. They kept swarming me specifically because they had medium well meat on their skewer but my boyfriend also felt very harassed.

He was told a piece of meat was well done but it was absolutely not. They had also clearly been off the heat for a bit because none of the meat was hot at all. It wasn’t stone cold but it certainly wasn’t hot either.

Once I had a bit of everything I wanted to try I tried to tell two people no. I was flustered because I had one on each side of me.

I ended up inhaling too quickly and something spicy got caught in the back of my throat. I started coughing uncontrollably. They ran off and I started chugging water. I had put chimichuri on my food and the oil was not going down easy so it just lingered. Ran out of water very quickly. My throat was burning and it hurt SO badly. The drainage was triggering my acid reflux which just made it worse.

I was very upset and started to feel sick so I asked if we could leave. We asked for the check, explained what was going on and he brought it to us. He apologized and said he would bring us the manager.

We paid the check and told her what was happening. She also apologized but sounded extremely insincere and just acted like she couldn’t be bothered to deal with us. She said that she would speak to them and that this had been an issue before multiple times. I’m sorry but if you’ve had to speak to them multiple times this should have been taken care of a long time ago. Her tone makes us doubt whether she even will speak to them.

Like I said, we paid and then we left. On the way home we decided to call them because truthfully, we should have been offered something more than what transpired to make up for the experience. They didn’t do anything to make the situation right.

When we got home, we called them and asked to speak to a manager. We asked for a refund and they basically just hung up. We called back and they put us on hold for so long that it had to have been deliberate. We hung up, called again and got hold of the district manager. They basically blew us off and told us they couldn’t go anything and to call corporate on Monday.

We would have accepted whatever they thought was appropriate but to basically tell us to screw off with no apology for what happened is unacceptable.

Both I and my boyfriend have worked in food for years and we would be extremely embarrassed to have someone experience this and then not do anything about it. It’s one thing to have a bad night occasionally but the way it’s handled really shapes people’s opinion of your establishment. This situation has guaranteed we will not be stepping foot back on...

I mean, it is clearly a meat-lovers paradise, if you have a big appetite, you can really have a good time here. I love to eat, but I found the whole experience very loud and chaotic.

We had lightly starved ourselves all day to "make room" for eating a lot here, and when we arrived, we found absolutely NO parking, due to a game at the stadium. So by the time we found a place to park and made it inside, we were already a little grumpy. Only to find the air conditioning at the restaurant was out and the waitstaff seemed just as grumpy as we did. They had big blowers going at the corners of the restaurant, so it felt reasonably cool inside, but I understood the back of house was like a furnace - probably pretty literally, the way they cook the meats.

I was happy with the cold bar items and waiting for the meats to come around, but my date didn't want to fill up before he got the more premium cuts - i.e. the filet mignon, etc. He had to ask our waitress twice for them to bring them out, but then we were bombarded with meat skewers - like 3-4 people at once. (We asked for it!!) For my part, I liked the flank steak the best, and the beef and pork ribs, and the shrimp from the skewers and the hot bar. The filet had a weird taste to it, I thought. And after a while, it's all so overwhelming and you don't remember what is what.

I was doing okay after our meal when our waitress talked us into two desserts (probably out of spite.) Less than halfway into our desserts, I felt like if I ate one more bite I would be sick. They were the dairy options - the creme brulee and the cheesecake - and I won't go so far as to say they had gone bad, but with all the heat in the back, it made me wonder.

Aftwards, we were both SO miserable! The long walk to the car and the whole drive home, I thought I would barf. I had to lie down for a whole hour afterwards until I could bend over enough to wash my face and get ready for bed. I never, NEVER want to eat here again, BUT if I do, I'd be totally happy with the cold bar food. Like, any one of the multitude of options would have made a good meal, but all of them together was kind of a nightmare. I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek, it was honestly a good meal up until the dessert, but still, I don't think I'd ever want to eat at any brazilian steakhouse again, much less...