The Grill From Ipanema — Restaurant in Seattle

This is by far the worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant. I consider myself to be a very patient person, but no amount of meditation could raise my serotonin levels enough to prevent me from writing this review. I don't usually make a big fuss about service as I work in the industry myself and am very understanding of reasonable delays or forgetfulness. I truly get it. But I couldn't quite figure out how this place could operate so poorly.

Prior to dining:

The only positive about the experience is that we were easily able to snag a same-day reservation for two at 6:30pm on a Saturday.

We get there at 6:25pm and they seat us immediately. Wonderful. We came for the Rodizio aware of what meats are provided there, so we didn't have to look at the menu much, but luckily I noticed the fine print before putting it aside. 20% auto gratuity for all parties, which mind you is NOT stated on their website. It states only that there will be an 18% auto grat for parties of 6+, that of which is quite standard.

I decide to overlook that detail since we were celebrating an anniversary and had anticipated a pricier date than our usual endeavors and I figured it would make sense for the experience this type of restaurant typically provides.

Dining experience:

We get going with our drinks about 15 minutes after being seated and head to the salad bar which is sub par. Not a whole lot to offer there, but the beef stroganoff was actually nice, creamy and tender and honestly saved me from starvation because we didn't even get the first round of meat until 25 minutes after being seated. It was sausage, which I declined because I wanted to save room for the better cuts of meat such as the Picanha. We didn't see the Picanha until an hour through. The entire first hour was only chicken drumsticks, sausage, and roasted pineapple.

We were in a back corner of the restaurant so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it, but we saw servers bringing cuts of meat to other tables nearby that we never received the entire 2.5 hours we were there. There was a large party seated by us and even they seemed to miss out on a lot of the cuts.

Out of the 16 entrees that the menu claimed as part of the Rodizio, we were brought 9. Zero ribs which was very disappointing for me as ribs are one of my favorite foods.

9/16 entrees... where was the other half?? 6 of which were only brought to us because my bf got up to tell them we had been waiting for more food to come around. Out of 2.5 hours we had 7 bites of meat, some shrimp, and a slice of pineapple brought over to us. The Picanha and the chicken drumsticks were the only two meats we had that weren't dry or overcooked.

Post dinner:

I was hoping they would have at least comped the auto grat since we had to ask for food to be brought to our table 2 hours in, but they did not comp any of it. I wish I had asked that before I used the restroom and my bf silently paid the entire $200 check.

I called the restaurant both that night and the next day during business hours. No one picked up the phone, so I left a voice message AND an email hoping to speak with a manager which is unlike me, but we didn't even have $50 worth of food on our plates altogether, so I feel like they robbed him. I haven't gotten a response at all.

Do yourself a favor and try another Brazilian steakhouse like...

Compliant regarding the server. We still love the restaurant and its food, but the dining experience is soooooooo awkward now.

We dine at this place at least twice a month.  The lady who checks everyone in knows us. Usually, my husband and I visit together and spend around $150, and we order drinks sometimes. We typically tip 20% +. No gift card, no discount coupon or anything.

I think it's the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022, the previous server left, and they now have a new server. This server is so BAD at his job. (He can't hold a conversation with us. He never remembers we are regular. He holds too much stuff in his other hand, and I have to help him carry the plate he got for us. ) That's all fine until he messes with my fried plantains addiction.

When I ask for more fried plantains, the server has to give me such an attitude. Whenever I ask for fried plantains, the server will only bring one for each of us. So he brings two fried plantains and two cheese balls TOTAL, and I have to continue asking him.  I asked him over 4+ times last time. That's not enough for him to realize how much I like them.

And when we asked for the 5th time, he decided to cut down the fried plantains to only one without me asking..... Fried plantains are such a small investment to make customers happy. Aside from that, we dine at the restaurant frequently enough, and it's sad he doesn't even care to remember us... Even the lady who checks everyone in remembers us...

We dine there twice a month at least. Let's do simple math here. $150 every time. With tip, we pay $177. How much do fried plantains cost? Say I get 5 fried plantains every time; that's at most two whole plantains. Two whole plantains get us coming back every two weeks!!! No fancy marketing, just plantains. Again, fried plantains are such a small investment to make customers happy. I'm sure the business owner gets it, that's why he let the serve gives them out for free.

To add more details to that, before the current server, the previous one was friendly and smart enough to: 1: Realize we are regular 2: Bring enough fried plantains without asking. So we are happy to visit frequently!

Another super odd thing was... He never cares to have a conversation with us. (It's fine since he doesn't remember us as regular) We dine there at the beginning of the month. Right before we are ready to pay, He came around and asked us very awkwardly if it was our birthday. I told him no, it's not. But he continued and said said, in the system, it says it's our birthday, and TGFI will give the customer some gift for birthday if you let them know.

That was such a weird conversation and full of awkwardness. I couldn't understand why he pays so much attention to birthday. Specially, it was not....... Now I realized he got a complaint from another customer because he forgot their...

TL;DR: This time was so much worse than the previous times we've been there. Very low variety and quantity of meat. We were still hungry after sitting there for 2 hours 45 minutes. Clearly something has gone amiss there, but they wouldn't tell us what. Do not recommend.

We've been here several times before and loved it, so we were just absolutely shocked by how poor our experience was this time. The salad bar was the same as always, good enough, the pao de queijo was good too. The meat was good, but there was barely any meat at all!

We have a lot of favorites there, like the garlic steak, the cheese steak, the filet mignon, the bison... and we didn't get any of them!! We like the shrimp, the pineapple, the bacon-wrapped turkey, but those only came around once each, which is ridiculous for a Brazilian steakhouse when you're there for three hours!! They had a few items that came around a few times, namely the tri-tip steak and the chicken legs and the pork sausage. Those really weren't what we came there for though, and those of us who were saving room for the meats we like the most were greatly disappointed!

When we called ahead, they told our group that they could only fit us in if we came right when they opened at 4pm, so we did that. They didn't bring around the first round of meat until after 4:30pm, though they did aggressively keep the pao de queijo and fried plantains and that stuff coming. It seemed pretty obvious that they were hoping to get us filled up and pushed out on just the salad bar food. We didn't pay $60 a person just to eat at your salad bar!

It seemed clear that there was some level of awareness that something was wrong there? They gave us coupons with the bill for $15 off per person on our next visit. We still don't want to pay $45 for three hours of salad bar and disappointment! We wanted to be understanding, but they seemed pretty unwilling to tell us why service was so much worse than it used to be. As such, I have no reason to believe it's ever going to get better again. I used to like this place better than Fogo de Chao and other Brazilian barbecue places, but it's definitely not worth it anymore. I probably won't be...