Samba Brazilian Grill — Restaurant in Madison

I would like to start by saying that I am a Brasilian and have gone to churrascarias rodizio-style (all you can eat meat brought by the waiters on skewers and cut right at your table) in Brasil and to a couple here in the United States.

The atmosphere was very nice. Brasilian music played as we were sat at our table. The restaurant looked clean and very nice, a good place for a special dinner with my wife.

The food was okay, overall. They had all the staples needed for a Brasilian steak-house, but I am afraid the execution was not well done. I did not care for the seasoning they used in a few cuts of meat, the feijoada seemed dry, and the variety of meats seemed lacking.

The service was nice. The hostess greeted us and led us to our table. She ensured we knew how a Brasilian Steakhouse operated. The servers were also friendly. My only complaint here is at the end of our meal, we were approached as asked whether we needed anything else, but it did not feel like it was an offer but more of a request for us to leave. We were not offered desert.

My two biggest issues with Samba Grill were that they do not have Guarana (a very, very common Brasilian soda, sure to be asked for by anyone who has been in Brasil), and that they did not bring meats around often enough. Usually in a Brasilian steakhouse you can expect that every few minutes, you will have a server come by to offer you a cut of meat. Most often, you end up with a full plate within 5-10 minutes, and you are forced to indicate that you need a break from their service to catch up. Here, my wife and I were lucky to get a different cut of meat in 10-15 minutes. We sat for two hours eating our meals, and at no point did we ever receive meat two times within those 10-15 minutes. The worst part of that was that they also skimped on the portions. Usually, you are given two decent sized slices of whichever cut offered, but here we were only ever given a single cut, sometimes only big enough for a few bites.

I do not blame the servers for not coming around enough. I believe that there simply were not enough of them to provide the proper service. I have to wonder if the owner/operator purposefully is having the servers come around less with less meat to offer the guests to save money.

I do not recommend this restaurant. I do not know how it currently has a 4.2 rating on Google. If you are willing to travel a little further, visit Chama Gaucha in Downer's Grove, IL, or Rodizio Grill in Milwaukee, WI (I have visited Rodizio Grill only once for lunch, but I know that it can top Samba...

This used to be one of our favorite places however lately they’ve changed in regards to service and attitude and it’s quickly dropped to a place I may never return to! I purchased two $50 off Groupons and when we used the first one we found out that they have now decided to automatically add a 20% tip to the total before deducting the Groupon...that’s fine, as long as the service is worth a 20% tip! Our first trip with the Groupon; we didn’t get all of the meats, they hardly came around to us! Our second trip; we had 6:45 reservations and still didn’t get seating until 20 minutes later and that was only because my husband questioned why other 6:45 reservation people were being seated before us (when they arrived late for their reservations) her response, we are waiting for a 2-seater table, we only have 4-seater tables open right now...OH HELL NO! It’s not my fault you only have a few 2-seater tables, I made a reservation for 6:45 for 2 people, you knew about it! Why am I any less important than the next person!? Because a party of 4 MIGHT come walking in!? Well I am here NOW! Then to make it worse, when we do finally get seated, we see other parties of 2 sitting at a table meant for 4...so how does the hostess logic hold any merit now!? Oh and as we were waiting in the lobby to be seated, you could clearly see all the empty tables inside the dining area. I’m not sure why this place is trying to make it seem like there are no tables ever available when the place is half empty! My review is not the first that has expressed this! This place is turning into a business where they no longer care about the customer in front of them and what the potential profit could be. And the fact that you’re forcing a certain percentage of a tip onto your patronage is ridiculous, I agree to add a tip before the discount however not all service is worth 20% and if you feel for whatever reason you have a justifiable cause to force this 20% tip rule, then you better go back and educate your staff on how to earn a 20% tip! Or maybe reevaluate your staff and it might be time to clear out some of those that are resulting in these types of reviews!! It’s too bad you’ve become so greedy there, because you used to be one of our favorite...

On Saturday, July 8th, my fiancée and I went to Samba with reservations for 830p. We were seated promptly, but it went downhill from there. The first stop was the salad bar. The cold items were good, but the “hot” items were room temperature at best. Then, the Rodizio meats. We got two rounds of 5 meat options within the first 15 minutes of our meal. After that, NO ONE came around. We were waiting for 20 minutes with our pillar turned to green, but no one came. Finally, one of the gauchos came by and simply said “is there something more you want of anything?” We had not even had all of the options of meat at that point, but were forced to tell them what we wanted instead of being offered (this was about 910p). The wait staff had proceeded to start cleaning up the dining room. We also noticed that the gauchos were packing up the meat. I was confused, as your website lists 10pm as a closing time. We proceeded to ask the man who seated us and he informed us that you seat tables up until 10p and usually serve until 1030p. He then told us that “it gets slow later at night on Saturdays, so we usually pack up early.” At that time, he walked away. He and other staff proceeded to take Tupperware containers to the salad bar for their own meals and proceed to grab meat of the skewers that they were supposed to be offering to customers. My fiancée and I had to wait at our table, with cold “hot bar” food. Finally a gaucho came by with chicken (a meat we had not seen until that time) and offered it; around 940p. We paid $100 for this meal and were treated worse than service at an Applebees or other casual dining. I will not be returning to your...