Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Kansas City

We were asked at our table to review this restaurant. After being ask to take out our phones and offered instructions on how to find reviews in google, my wife said she didn’t want to do this at this time because we were on our date. She said, “I want people to do it when I’m standing here or they won’t do it”. Then I was asked to take out my phone and review. I promised I would, later, because we were on our date. Promise kept. My wife and I had been waiting for a special occasion to try a Brazilian steakhouse in KC. I have had churrasco in Brazil twice. Not like this. For a Friday night it was busy. Arriving on time, we waited to be seated for at least 20mins passed our reservation. As we stood we looked around. It was a very well designed building. The bar looked fabulous. But we noticed a table clothe out of order (very wrinkled and placed very out of level) at the back wall near the front desk. I joked to my wife that it was a sign of how the night might go. It turned out that they were overwhelmed. The place was packed. There was no intimate setting that we envisioned with a high priced restaurant. It was more like a buffet where you hoped the food came to you. Very loud and open environment. They do not assign a server to your table but instead have a “team approach” to their service plan. The ‘team’ would come ask the same questions one right after another. Good intentions by all, but it really broke up the attempts at conversation between my wife and I. As we first sat down we were asked for drink orders and given some help with the menu and instructions. We waiting a bit, and had to ask where the plates were. You grab your plate at the buffet. We were given a second plate after awhile. As for the food, the salad bar was a one star experience. It was full of random items such as cheeses, cold eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, rice, and beans. A lot of it was never touched but the salad itself. I tried a sampling just for the experience. Nothing special. As for the meal. We started eating our salad not quite sure how the plate situation would go. We learned that you keep all your plates till the end. We flipped our coaster to green as instructed. We waited for the meat servers to come around. The first guy came around with roasted lamb. It was my favorite meat item. However, I took a small portion not knowing what was to come; we never saw that option again for our lengthy stay. What we did see was sometimes overcooked meats that came out after long waits. They were good but not blow your mind good. And I never had a chance to try the spicy sausage. Lots of sirloin and chicken then the same wrapped in bacon. One highlight was the cheese and honey. I’d almost come back for that! The free anniversary cheese cake was another 25min wait after paying at the end but it was very good even after being stuffed. No water refills after paying unlit I called someone over. The staff was kind and seemed to have great intentions. But we never connected with any of them. I think that the service team platform is intentional and makes sense for the meat servers. I wish we just had one person assigned to our table for taking plates and water refills. Btw, I was never asked if I would like more wine. Being asked to review during our long final wait (30 mins after we had paid) was a clear sign that managment is missing something. Many small things added up to a bad experience for us. Cruise ships do better. Also, don’t wear nice clothes. The cutting of the meat is very messy and you are in range. If you want to get very full and love large amounts of meat well done to medium, this is your place. It’s just not our speed. We don't plan to be back. I hardly ever leave reviews. I...

I grew up in Kansas City and had always been under the impression that Fogo de Chao was top notch-- the place to go. I've since moved away and had the opportunity to try several other Brazilian steak houses which I have thoroughly enjoyed so my expectations were high. Our reservations were at 7:15 and we were not sat until close to 8:00. Now I do realize an establishment like this is at the mercy of how long other patrons spend eating and socializing and it can be difficult to predict at times.

We were sat and it took several minutes for anyone to say anything to us. One younger gentleman with glasses greeted us and said he would return and we never saw him again and he primarily attended to the tables behind us. An older gentleman finally greeted us. He directed us to the cold/hot bar. The hearts of palm were really nice and the bar itself was clean and well kept. Our initial meats of the lamb and pork belly were exceptional. Here's where our experience really went down hill. The pacing is just really odd. This might be a business tactic in order to ensure patrons become full quicker countering food cost/waste but honestly that's just a theory....otherwise I believe there are many kinks that need worked out. Most of the meats come out at once which means they also all run out at the same time causing odd lulls in service where we would go for at least 10 minutes without any meats coming by. I'm really not use to this as I've said I've been to many other Brazalian steak houses which were constantly attending to patrons. Not once during our lulls were we ever offered fresh plates. The server who greeted us first we saw did provide fresh plates to the table behind us but it too seemed few and far between. He just had zero sense of urgency it seemed for the restaurant being entirely full on a Saturday night. The drink pacing was strange also. We asked for drinks separate from the complimentary water and we waited no less than 20 minutes for our drinks. Our server had an entire tray full and appeared to serve drinks to multiple tables at once including ours. Does it not make more sense to fulfill the orders as they occur so patrons don't wait as long? The hostesses also sat multiple groups at once which appeared highly confusing and disorganized at times for the people being sat. Another odd pacing and time suck. A few of the meats we only saw once the entire meal which I thought was odd. Other Brazalian steak houses will ask you towards the end if there are any specific meats you are looking for and you are able to special request but that did not happen for us. We asked to see a dessert menu but the menu we were given was dirty and wrinkley. Just a turn off seeing that so we decided against dessert.

The whole experience was just underwhelming for the nearly $150 we spent for the two of us. Fogo de Chao definitely and unfortunately ranks lowest of the Brazalian steak houses I've been to.

Update: emailed them in response to their comment on my review the same day they responded. 3 days later still no response.

Update 3/20/24: Spoke with Alexis who insisted on sending us vouchers as an apology. Have not received them yet although she kept saying the email on file kept sending emails back to them in error....which I believe is odd since I was able to email them initially without issue. I spelled my email out over the phone three times to...

My wife and I haven't been out on a date in months. This place came highly recommended by a colleague. We had reservations but arrived early. Our server was Jake and was very knowledgeable and helpful. I don't blame him in the least. When we arrived, the hostess sat us at a table in the corner. Which we found rather odd as the entire restaurant was open, and we could have been sitting just about anywhere else.

Jake explained the full service experience, and we opted to go with that for dinner. I wish we hadn't now. The cold buffet and charcuterie had an okay selection. It wasn't anything extravagant. Of all the options, my wife did enjoy the apple salad. We were looking forward to the full experience after Slim pickins at the cold buffet.

We asked our server if we could start the meat service. 1st up bacon wrapped chicken. It was good. The problem wasn't with the food. It was with getting the food to our table. We tried the small portion and anticipated the other 11 options. The problem we had was getting the options to come by our table. We would watch 2 new servers come out of the kitchen, serve 5 tables around us, and make a B line for the kitchen without ever offering it to us. My wife and I had our cell phone on the table with the stopwatch running.

1 of the servers brought us a grilled cheese with honey to try. He asked if we had been helped. When we explained the 15 minutes since we had eaten ANYTHING, he acted very surprised. But, with him standing there. We watched the Picana and Lower loin walk right past us and head for the kitchen like a bullet. The meat server was moving so fast that this guy had trouble catching up to him. Then, when he did, they didn't bring the food over to us. Instead, the server that was watching with us went into the kitchen and brought it back to our table. This happened several more times. We were waiting forever just to flag someone down to get some food.

The manager out front watched it happen several times. We were hoping he would come over and explain the issue or at the very least address the issue. But that never happened. More of the same continued for the next hour. My wife and I grew tired of it. After finally getting to the lamb steak and just asking for 3 pieces, we could eat and make it home on time.

This was by far 1 of the worst dining experiences in the last 15 years. This whole night was a disaster, and we had such high hopes. If you do choose to go here. I highly suggest avoiding the corner table. Ask to sit ANYWHERE ELSE!

update contacted corporate 5 days ago with contact information. Haven't heard back. 1/31/21

update 7/21/21* Corporate never responded nor cared.

update 9/7/24* I came back after posting a different review. I can tell you after writing feedback, I never heard a peep from management about this visit

update 6/23/25

Still have not heard anything from management regarding this, and I've decided this place cares nothing for customer service and even less about retaining customers. This is for rich people who don't care about spending $100+ per meal. Be dammed the people that save for nice meals like this and expect an experience and not...