Rio De Brazil Steakhouse — Restaurant in Johnson City

We visited yesterday, evening, 2/15. From a first-time experience, this restaurant, overall was….mid? Let me explain why.

As a quick note - we may go back again to give it another chance, but NOT on a weekend or before/on/after a Holiday.

First of all, they had a massive party table that stretched from the food bar all the way down to the other end, near the register. It was easily like, 40-50+ people.

Why did I mention that? Well, we feel that took most of their resources, as they only had 3 wait staff and a lot of the smaller tables were being neglected (like ours). After we sat down, it took 15-20 min just for our waiter to greet us. After that and I asked for a beer and the Cocktail menu (he brought them while we were up at the bar), we didn’t see our waiter any at all for at least an hour. I finally had to flag down one of the other wait staff (whom told us it was just the three of them, with one managing the party table) just to take our Cocktail orders. This was a little over an hour since we’d been seated.

Also, the first hour we were there, we got…and I’m not joking….one sliver of meat. That was it.

The wife was like - we aren’t filling up on the bar items and not get what we paid for the “full experience” (meats and such). So, we will just sit here and hang out and see what happens. She didn’t even get the pineapple she wanted until we were about to leave, like, an hour and a half in.

But the good news is, after the initial hour or so, they ramped up and started bringing out a lot more of the meats. Although there wasn’t a lot of variety. It seemed to be the same two, a lot. The wife really wanted more pineapple (it was her favorite thing) but it never made its way back around…and when I seen it, they were one table behind us, she got excited, then it flew way off in the other direction and we were like…what the heck?

During our time here, we noticed several tables that had gotten seated and after about 15-20 minutes, they were gone. One table had waited 45 minutes to an hour, just to get their ticket to check out and leave - and wound up having to go to the register to pay. We never got our ticket either and had no success in flagging down a wait staff member. We gave up, went to the register and gave them our table number off the candle. Ticket was accurate and we paid and left.

Rio De Brazil is definitely one of those where you go for the experience, food and drink, NOT the service kinda places…. The best staff person we came across was the Hostess. She was great and multi-tasked really well.

The food itself was really good. The food bar was excellent, with a lot of variety. The red meats were pretty good and well cooked, but the chicken and pork varieties weren’t as high-quality, it seemed… Cocktails were fantastic. I’d rate it a solid 9 out of 10, for food and drinks.

But…we weren’t impressed by the staff, service, wait times and general organization of how they bring everything out and service the tables. Thus, ZERO tip was left and I RARELY never tip, even is service isn’t the best (I love to tip and can tip pretty well, if the service is good). I’d rate this part about a 4 out of 10.

If we went back, it’d be mid-week, for sure (as I noted near the beginning of this review. Overall? I’d give it about a 6 out of...

There are certain restaurants, that on special occasions, anniversaries, vacations etc, you do not mind stretching the budget a bit, and spending $200 give or take on dinner for three people. At least you know (or expect) that it will be a special experience, with exceptional food, and top notch service. This was NOT one of those experiences. We arrived at 6pm, two hours after opening. I could tell from the undisturbed (and unstirred dried out) chicken salad, apple salad etc on the bar that we were likely the first customers of the evening. That being the case, I wondered how they could be bringing cuts of meat to the table that size wise on the skewer looked like the last couple of servings from that cut. Well when they put it on our plate, it was well done and dried out as well. It was pretty apparent that these were what was left of the meat from last night's dinner service. My wife asked, and the server denied it, but it was pretty obvious. Filet etc, all well done and literally dry. In addition, they would serve my wife and I smaller servings (as compared with other Brazilian steakhouses such as Gaucho's that we frequent as well), and then they would serve our son the equivalent of a child's portion compared to ours. The problem is our son is a 17 year old 245 pound football player who is taller than either of us, who we paid adult price for, And they are serving him like a seven year old. In addition, the other reviews that talk about them skipping your table after a short time are dead on. Yes the server would make the obligatory "is there anything else we can get you?", meanwhile the gauchos are still going to the other tables with new types of meat which we had not even seen, and we had to keep asking to try the new items that were being brought to the newer tables, as well as literally having to ask four times for more plantains. They do not use a soda fountain, and charge $3.50 per can of soda with no refills. So would we pay over $200 for the three of us to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary and enjoy a special meal (or experience as they call it)? Absolutely, that was our intention. However, this was a total let down, and actually walked out feeling robbed. Left over meat for $200+, are you kidding me? The manager ended coming over and took $21.15 (15%) off the bill (even though he said he was doing 20%, doesn't matter at this point. Then they went on to add a $5.20 charge for non cash! What kind of reputable restaurant charges you to use a credit card?! Still came to $150 before the tip. May as well have dropped $150 in the street. Absolute disappointment. Normally would have had dessert, maybe a couple of drinks, but the last thing we felt like was increasing the revenue of this establishment. Ended up at Cracker Barrel for dessert, should have eaten dinner...

I sent this message to the restaurant on Facebook on Valentine’s Day. The message was seen the same evening, and I received no reply. —-

My partner and I just left the restaurant. He had booked a reservation for us for Valentine’s Day, and we have been wanting to try Rio for months now.

I’m sad to say we are leaving disheartened and disappointed after being seated for over an hour without our original waiter checking on us even once. We were not asked if we wanted additional drinks, and our water ran out about half an hour into our time, with no refills, despite repeated attempts to get his attention. He was checking on his other tables throughout the restaurant, though, just not us.

We also had requested a booth because I have a bad back, and were told only large parties could be seated at booths. Shortly after we were seated, we heard another server say that a couple could be seated at a smaller booth, that only the larger booths needed to be saved for larger parties.

We waited and waited, couldn’t even get our bill, and finally, we went to the front counter to speak with someone, who I believe may have been the manager. He came and cleaned our table off, and a few minutes later, the waiter came and said “Sorry for the wait, do you need your bill?”

That was not a “wait,” that was one hour with no wait service, no additional drink orders (which we wanted), no dessert orders (which we wanted), no refills on water (which we desperately needed).

The food was delicious, and the service staff bringing it out were fantastic. But our regular wait service was not only lacking, but nonexistent.

Then we saw a 20% “suggested gratuity” automatically added to our total, and when we questioned it, the waiter said it was “a surcharge for the holiday weekend,” which is not advertised anywhere that we saw.

The restaurant was clean and the food was delicious, but we were sorely disappointed with the service and the bullying with the gratuity for two people who did not get service worthy of that 20%.

I am included a picture of our bill with this message. I would like some kind of explanation or reassurances that a future visit will be better for us; or else we’d be better off telling our friends to drive somewhere else for...