Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Houston

Did not want to leave a bad review but after emailing them and hoping for a response and getting none, this is my goodbye to Fogo Houston. The following is an email I sent last week.

Good afternoon,

I would like to first start by saying that I am deeply saddened to have to write this message. I have been a loyal member of the Fogo Westheimer family since 2008. I attended the menu tasting before the public opening. I attended the first dinner service. I have accompanied several celebrities in anonymity over the years that were visitors to the city that wanted an awesome experience. I asked my wife to marry me at Fogo. Our daughters signed their scholarships at Fogo. We have hosted corporate luncheons, employee recognition dinners, holiday dinners, birthdays including every birthday of mine since 2009. The list goes on of the investment both professionally and personally in the Fogo Experience.

Last night was my 54th birthday dinner, and as usual we CHOSE Fogo Westheimer because it is what my family does on my birthday. Upon arrival, the hostess was less what we are accustomed to. She was polite but she wasn't polished. There was acknowledgement of the fact that the birthday was the reason we CHOSE to be there. We were simply seated, given 3 cheese breads for a table of six and water. After a short wait our waitress arrived for what I thought I knew was about to happen. She never asked who the birthday person was, she never asked if we had been there before, she never asked or described how the EXPERIENCE works and she never told us her name.

My company owns and operates several businesses and the one thing that they all sell is EXPERIENCES. That was never offered to us last night. I had to explain the menu AND the process to our guests. Once we all turned our cards to green we were offered bottom sirloin, top sirloin, sausage and chicken over and over again. I had to ask for a manager and the gentlemen pointed me in the direction of a manager instead of going to get one. Imagine that, I had to get up from my table and go address an issue with a manager in the middle of the dining room. I explained that we would like to have more offerings presented. He politely asked what meat we wanted. I did tell him that I like lamb chops but we just wanted the options presented, you know THE EXPERIENCE. After that a couple of options were presented and then the same thing. I asked for a GM and was told that he or she was gone for the day and another gentleman who said he was the back of house manager came. I explained my issues and his immediate response was that the staff was new. That is not the customer's problem. How dare a manager blame his employees for lack of training and readiness. I was embarrassed for my guests, but more so for the Fogo brand and reputation. Oh, we were never offered or asked for desert options, even though our reservation was made with birthday instructions.

I has been great over the years. Please remember that the EXPERIENCE is the product, not the food. I...

I’m only rating 2 stars because our waiter and the gauchos were incredibly friendly.

First things first, I used to eat here at least once a month a few years back and I haven’t been in a while. But I loved it. My cousin and I went to celebrate her birthday and this has been one of the most disappointing experiences I’ve had at a restaurant.

When I arrived, the first thing is you no longer park yourself. You’re forced to use their complimentary valet. Not a big deal.

We didn’t have a reservation.. never have had to before and we got there on Sunday around 2pm and it was the most full I’ve ever seen this place.

They sat us at a table against a beam/pillar with someone sitting on the other side of us so it felt like they were with us. It was so strange.

Our waiter was very kind. They brought out the usual sides with the soggiest mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. They had zero flavor and I know could have made some instant ones from the box that tasted a lot better than what we got.

We immediately turned our cards over since the salad bar was nothing exciting. The placement of our small table made it hard to be noticed. With so many people packed into a room, we rarely had gauchos approach us. I have to mention there was a large party of 12 or so sitting opposite of us.. so they got a lot of the gauchos going directly to them. They’d would rarely turn to us.

When they would, of course they cut the smallest pieces of meat onto your plate. There was once a pork chop piece was cut and it was all fat not to mention it was like a 3/4” piece. He asked if I wanted another, I said sure.. only to cut me off more fat. The pichana was cut so thin that it was see through.

All in all, this was so crowded and the meat rarely came by. There were a few things that never made it out that we didn’t even get to try. It was a sad experience. You can imagine how I felt when those two meals & two Brazilian lemonades came out to $147.00!!!! Now mind you, I never mind paying that if what I’m getting justifies it.. this most definitely did not. This place is not the way I experienced it before & I’ll never go back. It was so overpriced for the quality and the food we got. I could have eaten a legit meal at Perry’s steakhouse for the same price. So disappointing. That price doesn’t even include the tip I left for my awesome waiter and the sweet valet guys. All in all, not worth it at...

So disappointed in this location!

I typically go to the Fogo de Chão in the woodlands with my boyfriend and the service there is phenomenal! No idea what went wrong with this location.

Brought my mom here for Mother’s Day and food was hardly brought around and when it was, there were several times our table was skipped over entirely which was annoying. At one point we watched the servers stop at the couple next to us three times in a row without coming over to us. I had hoped it was just an off day but the service my boyfriend and I received here this past Saturday (8/23) was terrible as well.

We saw our initial waitress about two or three times and that was only at the beginning of dinner. Another waitress stopped by later and then after that, no one else came to our table. I received a drink refill once and our sides were never replaced; the Woodlands location always has attentive servers, constant drink refills, and at least once or twice someone will replace our sides with a fresh, warm portion.

On top of that, the servers bringing around the meat would constantly skip our table despite us being in the middle of the area. Even weirder, would skip ME. A few times, my boyfriend and i had our coasters green and the servers would ask him if he wanted whatever it was, and if he said no, they’d leave the table without acknowledging me. Later on, his coaster was red and mine was green and no one would come to our table at all. At one point a server looked at our coasters then turned to the table next to us to serve them, then turned to look at our coasters again before walking off entirely. It was almost comical watching all the guys go to the tables around us instead.

Decided we were just going to leave after a while of that. Waited probably 15-20 minutes to see if any wait staff would stop by again so we could ask for the check but eventually my boyfriend had to go to the front to get someone over to our table so we could pay.

The food was so good so it’s seriously such a shame that the service was so, so bad. Not worth $120 at all. I would recommend sticking to another...