CS Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Brookside

Ok now. Saturday visit. Place open til 11. Came in at 7:30. Table for 2. Seated quickly. Not crowded. Someone came and gave us some water with lemons. Savor it. No other drinks were ever offered and only 1 refill of the water came in 2 1/2 hours. Small but serviceable cold bar with some very nice choices of salads, meats and cheeses. Loved the rice with the chicken and mushroom topping. Got the last of the chicken and mushrooms and no more was put out until just before we had our fill. Would have loved more. Tableside meats were presented well and quickly by amiable staff. Very polite. Loved loved loved the ribs and the pineapple. My favorites. Ran out of the ribs (seemed more like briscket, but delish) after only 1 rib. Not great if you close 3 1/2 hours after we get there. Some meats were under cooked, some over cooked, but over all, great meats. Someone dropped off a check and another customers credit card. They were gone before we could tell them it wasn't ours. When someone finally came back we were able to have a hand in returning someone's credit card to its rightful owner. Sides that are usually brought automatically to tables in a Brazilian Steakhouse never were offered. We were finally able to attract someone's attention to ask if we were allowed to have any. The lady admitted we were allowed to and brought some cold sides to the table. Again. Never an offer for refilling those sides. As the evening wore on, the only meats being offered were the tri tip and sirloin. Everything else must have been used up for the day and since it was only 2 hours to closing by this time, I guess no more would be made. We finished eating about 9. Then just waited for about 40 minutes for some kind of acknowledgment or bill. Every table around us was offered desert, got their checks, paid and left. Tables were "cleared" ie. balled up table clothes and left as it looked like they would be putting the chairs up on the tables so they could close a couple of hours early. Still no acknowledgment. When someone did finally inquire if they could help us, we told them we had been waiting for about 40 minutes. They politely said they would get our check. Guess what we did. Waited. When the check came, $60 per person, we found out they automatically added a 20% tip. TWENTY PERCENT for S**T SERVICE. NO SERVICE. Now, I manage my money meticulously. I keep money in savings to earn interest and before I use my debit card, transfer the exact amount I'll be spending into my checking account and present my card. HOPING this was just a "suggested" tip I handed over my card to pay for the meal having transferred enough to cover a much smaller tip when I would be asked to sign. They tried to run my card for the bill AND the 20% tip and of course got declined. When they informed me my card was declined ( for a FORCED tip) they asked me for another card. I told them no as I would not be paying a tip for the awful service we had received. Like a deer in headlights. I guess "How dare I not overpay what they demanded". SMH. "Let me get my manager" said the deer and shuffled away. A polite woman came a few moments later to find out what the issue was. At this point I felt like if she was managing, she would have already known the issue. At this point there were three tables left seated in the entire restaurant. All the tables by us were disheveled with old dirty cloths. We told her about our experience and how we were not intending to put out 20% for poo service by her wait staff. Now get this. SHE asked US who our wait person was. WE had no idea. (Isn't that HER job?!) Then she went on to apologize for her staff that "worked as a team" ( team failure there coach) and told us how she was always after her staff to not clean around customers who were trying to enjoy a night out. We never even brought that part up as we were concerned about not getting any assistance the entire night. She told us a story. About how she was out eating a few nights ago and had the same issues herself. They took the tip off. Gee wiz. Got her business...

I will never return again. I took my girlfriend to CS on her last day before returning to vet school because I wanted us to have a nice dinner. But the experience was beyond disappointing. If you don’t want to read my entire review, I’ll say this:

YOU ARE MUCH BETTER OFF DRIVING TO PHILLY AND GOING TO FOGO DE CHAO!

I sit down with my lovely date. We made a reservation but it wasn’t necessary, as the restaurant was mostly empty on this particular Friday evening. Our server greeted us and took our drink orders, and without hesitation, we excitedly headed over to the salad bar. To my dismay, the thing was pretty much depleted - scraps. We gathered up what we could. I picked out some spring mix with cucumbers, and my better half made a similar choice.

We sit down to pick at our hopelessly dour vegetables, knowing hopefully that the real thing was coming. It was fairly quiet. There were only six or seven tables in the whole restaurant and a small army of wait staff standing around and chattering with one-another. I wondered why none of them are busy for a moment, then remembered my time working in restaurants. It gets slow sometimes. I get it.

Ten or so tedious minutes pass, and we receive our drinks. Me, a draft beer, quite boring but what can I say? I’m here for the meat. My beautiful girlfriend, an amaretto sour. I tasted it. Much better than my beer! Almost as if it had no alcohol at all! The bartender must have been a magician that night because this ended up being a recurring theme.

Go time comes and we flip our gritty, clearly unwashed paper coaster-looking cards to green, to symbolize that it’s time for meat, but alas - there is a problem. We don’t have plates. That’s right. 15 hungry minutes pass, and a lone stray cook stumbles from the kitchen and makes the rounds to his masses. Table here, table there, his skewer depleting. Why is he alone? This man need reinforcements. He reaches our table to offer his single remaining chicken leg. I inform him of our lack of plates - perhaps he is vision-impaired. Who am I to judge? A kind server overhears me and let’s me know she will bring us our plates. Now we’re getting somewhere! We’re at least 30 minutes in by the way. And what she didn’t tell us is that there was more waiting in order.

Our drinks run out, and we both order another round, this time a vodka cranberry and a Tito’s martini dirty. In a lower class joint I would generally tell them to go easy on the olive juice, but the fancier places can generally handle it on there own. 5 minutes go by. Tick tock tick tock. The drinks show up, and I receive a martini glass full of olive juice, and our guest of honor receives a glass of cranberry juice. It’s getting late. I’ve told her I’ll take her to a nice dinner. What will she think?

I quietly pass my thoughts back and forth while I keep an eye on the kitchen door. I jokingly told her we’d get hotdogs tonight, but we both knew I could do better, even though she’d be happy either way. Angel. The kitchen. server goes in. Server goes out. Drinks running dry. Glance around. Folks talking. Not a single fork in hand.

A beam of light splits the floor and unfinished ceiling in two. Picanha. The good shit. We both get a piece. I ask for two but the cook walks away before I can finish my sentence. This singular moment of the evening that I can generally say that I enjoyed, because i genuinely enjoyed that sliver of beef.

It’s now been an hour since we‘be sat down and what I assume to be a manager notices my watchful eye upon the kitchen. She asks me what I need. I tell her what I need. Meat. It’s nearly too little too late at this point though. I planned on getting home around this hour and helping the light of my life finish packing. The manager tells me she’s gonna tell them to bombard me.

Another 10 go by.

The drinks are dry once again, and our server takes more drink orders(he actually wasn’t terrible, but it’s not like he had to take orders...

I passed by this place around 4 times before finally being able to eat here. When we came in inside they told us we had to book an appointment for one hour and 30 minutes later even though there was at least 15 available tables. I said okay about the wait time, they even ask if we would want to wait there and I feel like their tone made it seem that they didn’t want her to be there. I went shopping around there for an hour and 50 minutes, that was over our wait time yet we still didn’t get any call or such to tell us a table was available. When I came back and asked if our table was available they looked around for our pierce of paper that they put our reservation on as if they threw it away. When we sat down we wait for so long for the beef’s to come out and when it arrived the food was almost completely cold and there was only like 2 kinds of steaks, one type of sausage, one type of pork and chicken. It didn’t taste that good either, The salads were alright and so was the sausage and pork. The steak and the chicken wasn’t that good it didn’t have much flavor. The lamb smelled weird and didn’t seem cooked enough. The foods only came out once in a while and they were pretty cold. The seating placement didn’t feel high class or fancy. The staff at our table was good but they need to pay better attention because I ordered a drink that didn’t come out even after we paid. When we confronted them about it they didn’t apologize or anything and just said that they’ll bring it out for us but why bring it out now when we were done eating and about to leave. And for the water, after we điện almost half of it and the ice melted there was a huge piece of plastic floating inside. When we told the staff about it they just laughed and said that they’ll get us a different glass. That’s very funny huh. The total price was $60 per person not including the drinks, I wouldn’t say that it was expensive but it wasn’t cheap either. When we left there were a group of staff near the front door, three of the staff were having a conversation and one just looked at all the costumers and smiled. They didn’t even say goodbye or nothing to the costumer. I’ve been to quite a few Brazilian restaurants before but this one is probably the worst because sooner or later this restaurant will become like the one near UD (that one is super empty). I feel 60 dollars per a person that is this bad, I have more better options like Cheesecake Factory and grill Montana. I hope I can come back here but if this place doesn’t get an update after this I will probably never be coming back because it’s a...