Rodizio Grill Brazilian Steakhouse Chattanooga Downtown — Restaurant in Chattanooga

The worst!!!

Let’s start with the positives: We arrived on March 11, 2025 at 7:40PM. The restaurant closes at 9:00 but we were under the impression we were fine for dinning. Parking was no issue and the restaurant has a good health score posted on the wall as we entered. It looked clean and had a nice appearance. That’s where the positive ended.

The negatives: I’m used to having smoked salmon on a Brazilian salad bar. First time I’ve been to one without. There was none, so I was slightly disappointed. The salad bar was basic, but passable. Our server was named Angel. He was ok. Nothing special, nothing exceptional. His low point was telling me “I looked good for my age.” I hadn’t told him my age…. But he was not an issue. We finished the salad and turned our block over for the meats. Note: At this restaurant you do not get fresh bread, potatoes, polenta, etc brought to your table. It’s set up like a buffet line with metal tins containing them. They had all been prepared much earlier and were never refreshed. All were inedible, hard, and cold. We had noticed a single gentleman sitting beside us dining and how they had only brought out a few meats for him to choose from. They repeated the same 3-4 (spicy chicken, bacon wrapped chicken, Parmesan crusted beef and something called “tritip” or something starting with tri).. Nothing else seemed to be coming out. Our first choice was the tritip. I asked for medium rare. The cut was medium-well. The first bite was nothing but tendon and hard fat, and again, inedible. We were then brought the Parmesan encrusted beef, which was the third item that was overcooked. You could also see that the amount of meat on the skewer was very small, so the chances of rare or medium rare medium was dwindling. The Manager, or whoever kept checking to see how the food was (who’s name I hate that I can’t remember. Tall and thin, fairly young male) came by the table and asked how everything was. I replied, “Not good.” I showed him the meat on my plate and how all had no redness, and the piece of meat that was fat. He seemed unfazed by it, like it was no big deal. I told him that it seems that all the meat are the same 3-4 choices, and asked for both the picanha and lamb. The picanha arrived, and once again was so overcooked that it was embarrassing they would even bring it out. Manager arrives again and I show him the picanha. Well-done to a point it’s crispy like a chip. I told him it was disgraceful to serve this. I asked if the lamb was coming and he said it would be 20 or more minutes, which means they have none. I worked in the restaurant industry. 20 or more means we don’t have any ready and don’t want to make more. By now it’s only 8:30. Still 30 minutes to close. I complained the the food was a disaster and the manager offered to comp a dessert. COMP A DESSERT!!! I looked at him like the fool he was, and said, “No, we are ready to go. We are still hungry!” He then said, I’ll take 15% off. At that point I just pointed to Angel and asked for out bill. I left Angel a tip, because he shouldn’t suffer for the incompetence of the kitchen or the manger.

Here’s the point. At 7:40 PM, as we are being seated, tell your guests that the rush is over and you are not preparing fresh food. Give them the chance to leave. Don’t let us sit for 30 minutes, have a drink and salad as the food gets older and colder. ABSOLUTELY POOR MANAGEMENT! If this was my restaurant heads would roll! You charge $47 for the “Full Experience” and then alcohol on top. With tip, we are looking at $150. We could have walked over to Main Street Meats and had ribeyes for less!

To offer a 15% discount when we didn’t even get close to full is unacceptable. Save your money and find one of many better dining places in Chattanooga, and definitely don’t walk through their door after 6 PM cause you will get all the leftovers. I’d give it a negative star-rating if I could. The manager needs to find a new line of work. So, we spent $150 and didn’t eat. Basically, they...

My boyfriend and I went there on Valentines day. We had a reservation for 8:00.

We got there at 7:30 to check in and was told to come back at 8:10. We come back at this time and are told it is a 30-45 minute wait past our reservation time. At this point we go and sit at the bar.

The bartenders were extremely disappointing. It appeared that there were only two bartenders making cocktails for everyone in the entire establishment for tonight. That seems like poor planning on managements side for a night like Valentine's day. It took over 20 minutes to get someone's attention. I had to ask for a menu twice just for a customer to bring me one because the bartenders were that busy.

One bartender was obviously too stressed and emotional to accommodate patrons in a meaningful manner. They were loudly complaining about how busy the night was and how stressed out they were. Well, it's Valentine's Day. That is one of the busiest nights of the year for nicer restaurants.

When we finally got our names called for our reservation, 45 minutes later, we actually were taken out of the restaurant, and into what appeared to be the adjoining hotel's conference room to have dinner there.

At that point, my boyfriend and I were extremely disappointed and contemplated leaving. The dining area was set up like a seminar hall for work conferences.

Very embarrassing and disappointing for a restaurant that advertises good service & dining expectations. Never have I been to a restaurant and they've seated me into another establishment, a conference room for that matter. That was a first experience.

We sat down at a table (at the hotel conference room, not the restaurant) that was so unleveled and unbalanced that putting a plate on it would cause a drink to knock over. We asked our waiter to fix it and he didn't so my boyfriend shoved a napkin under the leg of the table so it would at least stay upright.

Before I sat down into my chair there was actually food on the chair and I had it swapped out. Our waiter gave us our drinks. The straw that finally broke the camels back was when we actually saw the meat come out on skewers, and how awful it looked.

At this point we got up and left and went to Taco Mac. If anyone asks me about this place, this is the experience I will tell them about. I probably would've had a better experience in a sit down Krystal. Taco Mac did a great job...

To say this was a disappointment is an understatement. We drove over an hour to have my husband’s birthday dinner here. His children drove down from Cookeville- around 3 hours. What we experienced was NOT what we expected at all. After being at the table 50 minutes, with our protein indicator on green, we had 3 servers stop by our table- 1 Parmesan steak, 1 white fish, and one sweet and spicy chicken. The chicken only had one serving left, and we had a party of 4. One of us got that piece and cut it into 4 tiny pieces we shared. At 50 minutes, while we were sitting waiting, our waitress finally came to our table, but asked to clear our plates. I told her we had yet to receive FOOD!! “Oh, they didn’t bring any?” Well, for $50, no!! They came from the kitchen and made rounds to tables nearby and we saw so many get plenty, but they continuously ran out before our table and skipped us the next time. She said she had been busy looking for a corkscrew the past 20 minutes which is why she hadn’t been around to check on us.

She finally asked some to come to our table, so we finally had 3 others stop by with pork tenderloin, bacon wrapped chicken, and pineapple. That’s it. The waitress wasn’t seen again until we flagged her down to ask for a check. We gave up. After sitting in the restaurant for around 90 minutes, we left without a real meal, and certainly nowhere near what we paid for. We will Never return. For over $50 a person , we left hungry. We left disappointed. The service was nonexistent. The food was good that we had, but we couldn’t get any!! People should know that some people are treated differently than others here. The table across from us was served over and over in front of us, many many meats, rolls, and the wine the waitress was gone forever to find apparently. They would run out there and we were left watching and waiting for food. Perhaps add a disclaimer that if you wear jeans and sweatshirts in, you will be ignored do at least hard working people like us know to spend our money elsewhere. As a small restaurant owner myself, I’m disgusted by the service...