Epic Chop house — Restaurant in Raleigh

Let me start with the good. The place has a nice decore and the side bar was ok (a little hit and miss), I loved the chocolate covered strawberries.

Ok, that's it!

I really felt sorry for this place; so much potential, but nothing near any Brazillian steakhouse I've visited in terms of food and service. The young lady, in the bomber jacket, who seated us, seemed to be instructed to put us in a spot that had no A/C at all. Not that there was very much in there to begin with. How can they even have this place open with that kind of heat inside there. I started sweating as soon as we sat down. I asked our waitress, was it me, or was the lack of A/C a part of the experience (Mind you it was over 100 degrees outside).

She immediately called out the owner, and rightfully so, in having this establishment open with little to no A/C and still charge us (Party of 3, $224.00). I had her to move us closer to the sides bar, thinking it would be cooler by the iced sides sitting in the open; I was wrong. We sweat the whole time, wiping our faces with the hard black napkins.

Of course, as expected, the heat lead to bad customer service from the employees, which I assume lead to bad cooking from the cooks (the meats were not very desirable). It seems like everything was either too salty or bland and not seasoned well. They also had a propensity to serve us meats that were rare (when we clearly asked for medium and medium well). Maybe the heat had them not wanting to turn up the fire; Idk.

We eventually asked for WELL DONE for everything, and this came out at a snails pace. So, we ended up eating mostly sides from the bar. The waitress then came to our table, after serving us half a dozen meats, and said you have tried all 13 meats, is there anything else you want to try specifically. I was thinking, yes, how about the other 7 meats we never saw. But we politely asked for the meats that we did eat that we could stomach (that would be 2 of them).

She served them (this time, promptly, I was impressed) then brought out our check without us asking for it (big No No to big tippers). She didn't even ask if we would we be having any dessert. I normally order coffee after eating so much meat, but it was too hot for that, and I was becoming annoyed at this point, because I became annoying. I had her to tell us all the desserts they had, how they were made, and the ingredients, knowing I wasn't ordering anything else.

Shame on me.... Again, I felt sorry for the waiters and waitresses, including ours, because I felt that the service, or lack thereof, was a result of the temp inside the restaurant. But, at over $200 for a meal, I pay for not only the food, but the service and we walked away very...

We came for Valentine's Day, which to be fair, happens to be one of the busiest times for restaurants. Still the service was disorganized and exceptionally bad for the pricepoint. That is, paying almost $200 after drinks and tip for two. It was our first time here so we thought service would be more considerate knowing this, but we were dead wrong. Our table was routinely passed over. I hate being made to feel like a pest. 20 minutes for drinks (unabashedly told they were trying to give our drinks to another table...), 30 minutes before we got any meat. The table we were seated at was small and rickety compared to the main dining, I had to ask for a drink coaster to balance it. Servers asked us to "make room" between our plates, napkin, and silverware there was so little space for anything. I saw cuts of meat go to other tables while we waited nearly 10 minutes between just to be asked about pork sausage and dry, salty bacon-wrapped chicken AGAIN--no seriously, we were offered that four times. We absolutely were not presented with the advertised "13 cuts of meat" from the rodizio, and it took all my willpower to not get sassy at our server for asking us if there was anything we'd like to "try again," implying we got to try mostly anything. I pointed to a beef rib parading for the third time past our table, and was finally served a single small shaving from it. Heaven help your table if you have different temp preferences for your meat because someone will go unserved; I asked for medium rare while my fiancé asked medium well. We only go to try 8 cuts from the rodizio because we SHARED bites of our single slice from the rodizio from each others' plates. They never came back to serve the other with a different temp of the same meat. Then when I was served, most meat was grey and dry, so why bother? The red meats were pretty tough and tasted like a cheap roast. Had pork ribs so dry that Applebee's could have been a contender. We requested things that were forgotten about, and we felt that we were putting the overburdened servers out so we didn't want to get rude. I wish we had left instead of spending 5:45pm to 7:30pm waiting for food shavings. The appetizers at the buffet were okay, but you aren't paying their tiers for limited buffet items. I didn't think this was a great experience and I don't...

It was a birthday celebration dinner for my daughter and our friend. We had a party of 11 people. When we arrived and seated we were the only dining guests in the room. It went downhill from there. The waitress took our orders. What took place next was a travesty. Our orders were mixed up, arrived late or not at all. No one ever came to the table to check on us or our dining needs unless we flagged someone down and had to practically yell out for someone’s attention. My daughter ordered the platinum dinner as well as three others at the table. While the others received there’s not timely, but they did receive it, she finally got her lobster just before we were leaving. The service was very chaotic, hit or miss and extremely disappointing. Some of our guests had never been to the restaurant before snd believe me they were not impressed and said they wouldn’t return in the future. I do not believe it is because there was a change in service if the soup, salad and appetizers. It was just plain lousy, whatever attitude of the servers and it showed in their lack of good service. We were all asked the cooking level of meats which was for nothing because rare only came to our table once, medium-well maybe twice snd medium about three times. For all the different types of meat we were only shown three or four and they were all medium which did not meet the needs or everyone at the table. One of my guests asked for steak sauce and an empty bottle was brought to the table. When we informed the server and requested another bottle it was 15 minutes later before we received it. By that time my guest said he just wouldn’t bother and didn’t eat anything else. I was very embarrassed and disappointed in the total and complete lack of care and attention that used to be given to customers especially with a large party. The really said part is that the table that was seated well after we were seated was given great service while we sat and had to wait for service. I used to go to this restaurant and take out of town friends regularly. I really do not think I will frequent or return this restaurant...