Pampas Brazilian Steakhouse Vacaville — Restaurant in Vacaville

As a loyal customer of their old location I am shocked and appalled at both the food quality and service at the new location at the former Tahoe Joes steakhouse. I've spent $10,000 or more at their previous location, and for good reason; the food quality, service, and ambiance were well worth the $65 price tag for a quality meal of high grade meats. My experience tonight was an absolute embarrassment for myself and my wife personally, having hosted two of our top business clients for dinner here tonight.

The service was non-existent. The bread arrived cold. The bananas arrived late meal, no mashed potatoes. Since the staff were not bussing the tables in a timely manner, we ended up having to place dirty dishes on the table next to us and there were a lot of dirty dishes because the food was entirely inedible.

The salad bar was not well stocked with multiple items being empty. The hot part of the salad bar was not held at proper temperature to prevent food borne illness. For example, the creamy chicken whatever it was supposed to be, was thickened and lukewarm but not hot. Impossible to tell if this was a soup that had simply gotten cold and thickened up or what it was, it wasn't hot (140F) as per the food code. The soup pot said creamy vegetables, but it appeared to be a clear broth vegetable soup. The grilled pineapple was green when it was grilled. Use your imagination to think about what that tasted like.

The meats were inedible. We eat lamb 3 days a week. This was mutton. Both the leg of lamb and lamb chops smelled and tasted like old freezer-burned mutton. They smelled like beef boiled in a gym sock. No one could eat the "lamb" without gagging. The parmesan pork was overcooked, the parmesan was burned and blacked and tasted indescribable because there's no other dish that you can think of where you would experience the taste of blackened parmesan. It rendered this favorite dish entirely worthless.

The full meat menu was not served - 17 cuts of meat did not come out and after the 6th or 7th total-fail inedible cut of meat, I'm honestly glad that we simply gave up on the other 9 cuts. I cannot point to a single cut of meat that WAS served that tasted like it was fresh or properly prepared. I sit here typing this with the feeling that I may vomit this food up at any minute. My dinner guests, business clients, were equally disappointed in the entirety of the experience.

At 7pm on a Saturday night, the place was less than half full and the bar was empty - Not a good sign. The bathroom floors were sticky and the stalls needed attention as someone had spit chunks of inedible meat next to the toilet. A stack of paper towels were on the countertop soaking wet- another Health Code issue. The lights were bright so you could see the mess of food littering the carpeted floors and the walk ways. The looks on everyones faces around the room were the same- as if everyone was trying to convince themselves that the food was "great" and that they didn't just get ripped off at a sinking ship of an establishment.

My wife and I eat Brazilian Steakhouse at least once a month, often twice a month and are familiar with every major brand from Fogo do Chao, to Texas de Brazil, to Galpao. We're no strangers to this cuisine or concept, but this new location is. The are entirely unfamiliar with the level of quality and service that a consumer expects to receive when they pay $100 for a meal. It is unacceptable and dishonorable to serve old, poor quality food and charge this type of money. The honorable thing to do is to close down until you can get your operation up to spec, rather than to do such a disservice to your loyal customer base.

I paid for this meal to not make an embarrassing scene in front of my business clients but I will be filing a $400 chargeback with my credit card company and I highly recommend everyone who has been 'baited and switched' by this new location,...

It is with great sadness that I write this review regarding the Vacaville location. I scheduled in advance for celebrating 4 of our birthdays and was very excited to treat all of my party for the experience. Our party of 7 arrived promptly at our time reserved, and was seated. As we were being seated we were approached and asked if we want water, sparkling or spring. (We were not even seated) Then a young man came over, and briefly explained the process. We felt very rushed. Before we had a chance to go to the salad bar we were asked if we wanted sausage, etc. I explained that we were not ready for meats yet not having been to the salad bar. The salad bar selection was good, but the hot selections could have been better. We were given a drink menu and ordered drinks. Other than Sprit and ice tea and, and, besides not having apple juice, I ordered a Malbec wine ($11) and my daughter ordered a cocktail. After waiting for 3/4 of our meal, and, trying to hunt down our server, we questioned what happened to the cocktail. After they researched, the bartender came over and asked what the drink was because he never heard of it. She explained it was on the menu. After a bit longer they came back and explained it was the Sacramento menu we were given and they didn’t have the ingredients for the drink ordered. We had the Rodizo special which was tasted great, however, I am not sure it was 11 cuts of meat as advertised, but maybe. It seemed like they were circulating the same cuts over and over, and had to ask for certain ones to be brought back. I felt like we were trying to find our server and had to send looking for him.( he never once came back to see if we needed anything) Had to ask several times for more mashed potato’s. When we were done we had to flag someone down for a desert menus. Our server brought the menus and we order 2 deserts. He asked if we were celebrating anything and I said yes, 4 birthdays (as mentioned on the reservation.) He said I will give you 2 complementary deserts. We also ordered 3 coffees and hot tea. When the desert plates came out, they were given to the two who ordered, one plate said happy birthday. After a wait, the one cup of coffee came out, no spoon, no cream. Waited and had to ask for a spoon. After waiting some more (maybe had to wait on a fresh pot of coffee) the second 2 cups came out. The server spilled a good portion in the saucer of each cup while walking to the table. Still didn’t get the tea ordered. After waiting longer our server came out and said they don’t have a good selection of tea - she said just regular is fine. Again waiting to get. As I said, I am saddened to write this review as we previously experienced such a nice fine dining experience at their previous site on Merchant street in Vacaville. This was our first time at their new location. It was super busy and, seemed overwhelming for staff. Perhaps, lacks experience. Seemed a little unorganized. I certainly did not feel the “fine dining” experience nor was it the fine dining atmosphere that we had experienced previously. When our bill came, my husband, did not pay attention that a 20% gratuity was already added for a party or 6 or more and added an additional 20%. (most restaurants it is a party of 8 or more) nor did he realize that I was charged $18.00 for a glass of Malbec when the menu said $11. He just looks at the bottom line on the bill adds a tip and is done. Overall, I would not go on a Saturday night, perhaps table service is better on a week night. Not sure our experience was...

I’ll deliver the bad news first and the good news after. The food was ok at best, a lot of the meat was cooked well done. There’s supposedly 17 different meats. Well we definitely weren’t served them all. I am familiar with how Brazilian steakhouses work and realize they usually save the better more expensive meats until the later in the rotation, which is totally understandable! But I feel every table should get the full rotation before bringing out meats that have already been brought to the table. Once everyone started to slow down our waiter noticed and came over and asked if we had any special requests (she was great service the entire time by the way) i asked for rack of lamb and filet mignon( which are both MY FAVORITE & they both were never brought to our table once during the rotation) one of the guys that brings the meat by the table first brought leg of lamb. Our wonderful waiter explained to him what I asked for and described to him what it was, 4 or 5 minutes later he comes to me and says here with beef rib in his hand. I told him no thank you. While waiting for him to come back with rack of lamb another man comes out with the filet. The rack of lamb is taking a while and my wife and kids had been done eating for about 15 minutes at this point. So everyone orders desert. My wife, 3 kids and myself weren’t too impressed by any of the tastes of the deserts. We all got something different and tried each others. Now we’re eating our desert and here comes the rack of lack. Can you guess I didn’t even end up getting to try it. There was 5 or 6 things brought out that were pretty good. Which is probably close to about half of the selections. For the nearly $400 I spent I wasn’t impressed. Our waitress was great though she was on top of our drinks and regularly checking on us as much as possible without interrupting. So her service was top notch and the...