Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Living Nightmare!!! Don't waste your time! So we made a reservation one week in advance for 7:15pm. We drove an hour from our location to get there and arrived at around 7pm so we checked in and were early. The hostess said she would notify us and call us over when our table was ready and said nothing about sending out a text message. Well, we were sitting outside and I checked my phone and saw that they had texted me. It had been one minute since the message was sent. As we walked to the front for our table they told us that our table was given away. What? Okay, so you won't even give us time to walk up? Anyways we were patient as they told us they're clearing more tables and will notify us in a couple of minutes and to just wait nearby. So we did. Then five minutes became 10 minutes, then became15 minutes, then became 25 minutes and it was nearly 8pm now. I kept checking in with the hostess and she kept just apologizing and saying, "sorry I know but as soon as more tables are cleared we will seat you." So she was basically lying over and over again to us every time we kindly checked in. People were leaving and she didn't even bother to acknowledge or even update us. We had to keep asking her as if like we were like stray dogs begging for food. And yes we were hungry because we waited all day to save up an appetite for the meats we expected to eat.

Finally, we just requested to speak to the manager. I think the young hostess was stressed to and I get it and so she kept referring us to the manager. She was also the one that gave our table away from the beginning. So she got the manager and it was almost 10minutes after that we were finally seated after explaining everything. But we ended up leaving since they literally stuffed us next to a group and rowdy and super loud obnoxious men who were literally sitting so close to us we were nearly touching. Grown men jumping in and out of their seats, it felt like we were in a moonbounce. Also, there was no space for all of them! So they sat so close to us because there were no more table space for their group. That's when we had it and decided to do our dinner celebration somewhere else. Fogo totally killed my graduation night. This had been planned for weeks, we drove an hour, starved ourselves waiting for nothing except to experience what was the most disappointing and worst dining experience of our lives.

In sum, the management and staff overall is just super unprofessional, not trained properly, and severely disorganized. Crowds of people were just standing in the doorway the whole time. People wouldn't even let my husband and I walk through so yes after being polite and kind saying excuse me so many times, we had no choice but to push our way through. We literally looked at the people, made eye contact and asked them to move kindly and said excuse me many times. They never even budged and ignored us. Then we were the one's called out for being rude. Then they felt bad because we told them we had said "excuse me" and that we're also getting pushed and bumped around by other people. It was way to crowded and loud inside that people were constantly bumping each other and pushing one another. Just nothing but chaos.

Went to Joey's instead and the staff there even agreed there dining experience is nightmare.

I don't think we'll ever go back to Fogo and we highly DO NOT RECOMENED it to anyone. We are kind, polite, and considerate people, but they will push your buttons even the sweetest patient people will go crazy. I'm an educator and work with kids all day so I know. It was just so disheartening to have our celebration for graduating grad school that night completely ruined by Fogo. We've never experienced a more awful restaurant. We definitely were not expecting how terrible it was either because of how fancy they try to be. We were just completely shocked and disappointed not to mention upset and very disheartened after all the time we put into planning what was supposed to be a very special evening and celebration. We do not recommend the...

9/11 Update: THEY CHARGED ME EXTRA! I am guessing they tried to add tips so I had to dispute it with my bank :)

Yall are NOT ready for this 😭 #justice for a $500 dinner party The host was not very demure, not very mindful. I was in shock and all we can do now is laugh about it. When we got to the restaurant, we notified the host of our party and how there was a change in the number due to an unforseen situation. He says, and I quote, “next time make sure to call us”. I get it, but my mom stated we literally just got notified as we got to the parking lot and was in real time texting our family member that is not gonna make it. The host, more combative now, states “well just make sure you call us at all times for changes”. That’s when I cut him off and said “it LITERALLY just happened.” He proceeds to scoff and roll his eyes. I get it, it can be disruptful when there are changes in reservations, especially during peak hours. However, It was 4 pm and only 2 tables were dining. If he REALLY needed to know, the person that did not make it had a medical issue come up; I guess a reservation in Fogo De Chao is more important than an emergency room visit. Anyway, not very demure, rather more of a short king behavior.

There was HAIR in potato salad in the SERVING STAYION. My mom caught the hair and notified management right away but unfortunately my boyfriend and dad already served themselves from 😀. Management initially said my mom’s dinner will be comped as she found it. Later the manager came around and said “because hair wasn’t in your mom’s food directly, it will not be comped, just discounted” truthfully, we don’t even want the discount and ended up refusing and just asking to pay full price.

The server spilled water onto my dad’s plate, table and seat. Accidents happen it’s truly understandable! We even asked if the server was okay after it; however, they just left the spill. LOL. This was not just an inconvenience issue, it became a SAFETY issue that could have causes a slip and/or fall. We had to continuously ask someone to please clean it up.

As a result of getting hair in the potato salad and spilled water onto the plate, we had to ask for replacement utensils. We were continuously getting ignored and servers were actively avoiding us and our table. No one wants to be in uncomfortable situations, I get that. We definitely did not come to this restaurant expecting a horrible experience, especially for a birthday celebration. However, getting ignored does not help, we are still paying for our meals and service and I believe that we are at least entitled to a decent service.

More ignoring. 4 different servers asked if my uncle wanted a refill on his drink. 4 times he said “yes please :)” .The bussers came first and started taking plates away before his refill even came. 6. I’m just going to include all the “promises” the manager to “make up” for the dining experience that did not even happen. He offered a complimentary dessert for the birthday but didnt come until we were walking out. You guys already know what happened with the “comped meal” they gave us a “discount” that I asked them to take off just for the principle(side note: the person at the pay station wasn’t a manager so he couldn’t take off the discount) The third one was for a “promo” for our next visit and to make sure we would want to go back. We didn’t get any promo, no one really talked to us as we are checking out. Which bring brings us to the next point- paying the bill. It took SO MUCH EFFORT from us just to pay our bill LOL. I had to beg to pay my bill. I came up to their pay station and asked them to charge me the right things that we ordered so we can leave. As a note, we really tried to make the most of it and be understanding with the situations. After all, this was supposed to be a birthday celebration. When the manager came up to speak to us, I even asked to speak with him privately away from our dinner party and other diners. Service still didnt get better ❤️‍🩹 and Safe to say, we...

Nice atmosphere. Terrible service. Ok food.

Very disappointed in this place. For years I've thought about going here with my family for my birthday dinner and every year we end up going to another venue but this was the year I was sticking to my desire to go here. So, I'm pumped to finally give it a try.

We get there and we have reservations (which turns out was not necessary at all). It's not busy. Lots of open tables. We go in and stand at the check in location for nearly 5 minutes before anyone even acknowledges us. From a distance while at another table, a waitress says hi and apologizes for the long wait and asks us to please wait a few mins longer, no problem. Not a great start. All in all, we're standing at the check in for about 10 minutes before we get seated.

We order, go to the salad bar and what not. Takes about 15-20 minutes for our waitress to bring the basic complimentary appetizers to the table. Fries for the kids, and several other things she didn't even explain what they were. I recognized one of them to be plantains though. We're all done with the plates we used for the salad bar but she only takes 2 of the 4 plates. It felt like this was the plan. Send in a bunch of appetizers to get the customer full so they don't go ham on the meat. I don't know, just by opinion.

All this time we have our little coaster up to indicate we'd like meat and nobody has come. So I'd say its been nearly 30 minutes now since we've been seated and the waitress comes back, surprised that nobody has come for the meat. Several minutes later they finally start showing up.

We didn't care for the beef. The chicken was good though. The beef was too fatty and over cooked. I noticed they brought probably 4 types of beef but never the filet. I was getting full and I finally had to ask for the filet and told them that was the only other meat I wanted from this point forward. But they kept coming with other meat. More beef, lamb...I guess the waiter didn't understand me when I asked if this was the filet, because he said yes. Turned out it was the lamb...I hate lamb and wasn't thrilled by that, expecting filet. The filet finally came and took probably 15 minutes to come to the table after I asked for it. It tasted fine but by that time, everyone was full and I didn't even enjoy it. I just wanted to leave.

Also, I paid extra for the buttery lobster and that still hadn't come out by 30 minutes into the meal, so I had to inquire where that was. The waitress apologized and said the person doing the lobster left for a break or something and she was going to comp the lobster, but still bring it out to me. Appreciated that.

The waitress was not attentive. Couldn't get eyes on her walking around to even be able to ask a question. She rarely came to the table to check on us. I don't think she ever came by and asked how everything was. We all only drank water and she came to the table maybe twice for a water refill - over the course of an hour plus meal.

All in all, it was a very disappointing dining experience. The place is really nice inside, however thats really the only positive thing I can say. The awful customer service and subpar food ruined it. Honestly I was surprised that it was so deserted on a weekend afternoon but now I know why. I can't believe it holds such a high review rating. I wouldn't return to eat here if they offered to pay the tab and send a car...