Tucanos Brazilian Grill — Restaurant in Farmington

With family in town, my wife and I decided to take advantage of having a baby sitter and have our first date night in months for NYE. We both enjoy Brazilian steakhouses so we thought we would give Tucanos a try. The night started off fine when the staff serving grilled shrimp hit my wife’s water and spilled the whole glass on her lap. No biggie accidents happen and luckily my wife had her napkin in her lap and was wearing a leather skirt, but still not exactly ideal. The staff takes off our table cloth and brings out a new fork saying we are out of knives but here are forks. Again not a big deal as we think they will bring us knives as soon as they get clean ones since having a knife to eat at this restaurant is borderline essential unless you want to eat like a barbarian.

5 minutes pass no knives or waitress checking in on us after the water ordeal, 10 minutes pass and we flag down our waitress to ask for knives, we get some meat and pass on others that we would like to enjoy with the benefits of a knife to cut the meat. 15 minutes pass flag down a different waitress and ask for knives, a few minutes later we see her busy doing something else. Finally after 20 minutes of waiting we flag down a 3rd person who was carrying silverware to setup a table and finally get a knife. At this point the meat that we needed to have a knife to cut is cold and we have started seeing less servers and notice tables getting cleared and clothes not getting replaced. Our waitress asks us if we want dessert yes we politely answer no that we would still enjoy the different meat they offer because we finally just got knives. After this we see 2 more servers with meat and decide to end this night.

The table next to us has been watching this all go on and while checking out the lady tells the our same waitress “they have had a bad night and experience between water being spilled on her and not having silverware for an extended period of time, I hope it isn’t a bad omen for 2025.” Our waitress then comes to our table to check on us and tells us what the lady said after we clearly just heard her since they were 2 feet from us. Then says I would offer you a free dessert if they weren’t already free. (At this point I would hope either staff was trained well enough or self aware that if you realize that the service/experience was poor enough for other customers to realize and then make a comment yourself about the poor experience that you would take the initiative to improve the situation instead of saying a half ass statement like if dessert wasn’t free I would offer you a free dessert. We both had a glass of wine and simply offering to comp that would have been a nice gesture)

We finally ask for our check and our waitress asks us what we would like for dessert to which we respond what our are options. She replies” let me grab our dessert tray but all of the good options are already gone.” We both pick a dessert and are checking out because at this point the service provided is just laughable. She reads me our bill and then turns her toast tablet device for the tip and says i know your experience has been terrible and we share tips so I’ll look away so you can tip bad. Super uncomfortable comment and truthfully I still tipped fine because the other staff should suffer from the actions of one. There were many opportunities to right wrongs or improve unfortunate events and 0 were taken. I can confidently say I will never walk into this establishment again. I hope this review helps with training staff and realizing when to take action to improve...

So I normally love Tucanos and have gone about 6 times in the past year. Last Friday night I was to meet up with a friend at the SLC location witha reservation. Unfortunately there was no parking. There were multiple events the the garages were full with all the entrances blocked. We were unwilling to pay $20 each to park in event parking and have to walk quite a few blocks. We cancelled our reservation and made the mistake of deciding to go to Farmington since we were both looking forward to a meal at Tucanos. We were seated and took turns goin to the salad bar and finished our salads/sides and were still waiting for the first meat to come out. The first one was delicious though we both only got a small slice. (It was nearly gone, so I didn't think anything of it, figuring another would come out later). What proceeded was long waits in between each dish, tiny portions and weirdly seasoned meats. One tasted like it was drenched in liquid smoke and another smelled like manure. The bacon wrapped pieces and Parmesan chicken were ok, but a bit dry, but also normal portions. Anything cut was about 1/3 the size of a cut at the SLC location, sometimes only being enough for one bite. I was a bit uncomfortable always having to ask for a second piece as they would immediately start to walk away. The first meat never came out again. We asked for it and they brought it, but this time it was seasoned completely different and not enjoyable. The worst was our second meat server. He brought out the pineapple, which is my favorite. He have me three miniscule pieces (maybe equal to one at SLC). I asked for another slice and he huffed at me and gave me a small piece and immediately walked to the next table. At the end we requested some pineapple to finish with. He brought it out and gave me 2 little pieces. I asked for more and he made another huffy noise at me and gave me one more. (Again totalling about 1 slice at SLC, where I regularly get 3 slices). He immediately started lifting it away to walk off and I told him I would like a few more please. He then replied that he would let me have one more, did so with his usual size and walked off. I was extremely uncomfortable and unhappy. I decided to get some fried bananas instead to finish the meal. I took a bite and had to spit it out. 1/3 of the center was completely black like the banana was rotten.I cut the other 3 and only 1 was good. I won't back and picked five hoping to find one more good one. I did not. Just before this (about 80 minutes before closing) the staff seemed to be helping ready to close. Cleaning, not bringing out much at all. We checked when they closed because it seemed that we weren't wanted there, but no, it wasn't closing time and there were still 3 other tables and another party of 2 came in and were seated. We were there for an hour and a half and it was only as we were walking out that we saw them bring out the shrimp for the first time. We thought this location didn't do it since we had not seen it in 90 minutes. We already paid and gathered our stuff, so I wasn't about to sit back down, especially after the way the server treated us. This was honestly one of my bottom 5 restaurant experiences and I will never go to this location again. It left me feeling so awful I may not even go the SLC one for...

Update: 28 Jan 2025 I have been back to Tucanos Brazilian Grill a couple of times since this experience and can say the service has improved. I avoid the fish or any seafood dish they have out of self-preservation and not wanting to risk a repeated experience. However, I can say they have at least made adjustments and increased the quality of service. I also did not reach out as invited as I wanted to visit the establishment without being known or expected to see if a real change had been made. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. On a side note, avoid visiting during a holiday as they charge a "holiday fee" for their meals. I did not know that while walking in, I did not observe anything advising of the price change online. Yes, I could have walked out, but my children were excited about visiting the restaurant, and I didn't have the heart to walk out.

Original review: Early 2024 Good food, except the fish. I had food poisoning from it after a visit.

I've been to this establishment with and without my children and it's been alright each time, not great but respectable.

My only complaint is the servers who walk around with the various sabers and food often skipped my table. They would outright walk by without stopping, go to the table next to mine or run out and never return with a refill.

I have been seated in various locations within the restaurant and had the same experience every time. I thought maybe they can't see the green side of the wooden cylinder meant to signal the servers so I tried placing it in different places on the table during each visit. Unfortunately I still had to flag down a random employee and ask why we were getting skipped and not served. They would always apologize but the service wouldn't change much. I would still be sitting there while the servers went to other tables skipping me and my family.

I always tip $20 or more so, I doubt someone recognizes me as a poor tipper, besides the point I don't know anyone working there so that also decreases that possibility.

The other reason I find plausible is I'm a bigger guy who likes food 6'2" 250lbs. I also have 5 children, 4 of which are boys who also like food.

I suspect, due to the multiple times this has happened is due to the restaurants practice to reduce time attending the table and allow ones body to feel full over time to reduce the amount of food consumed. Thus saving the restaurant money.

I've always had better service and experiences at Rodizio grill in Salt Lake City but due to how far away it is I can't always get there and I like to give restaurants multiple visits before posting reviews as I understand just like people, establishments will also have their up and down days.

Long story short, fair price for the advertised service and good food except the fish due to...