08/15/09

Didn't get to try the food

by noselesswonder

Knowing that Saturday afternoon/evening can be a busy time in the streets of downtown Denver, my family made reservations for a birthday dinner at Rodizio Grill several days prior to going there. Apparently, Rodizio Grill wasn't aware of the same potential foot-traffic issue - because they only had four to six servers in the restaurant and half of their tables were closed. The hostess explained that because of a "rush" in the morning, they were unable to seat our party of six right away despite our reservations. We waited in the lobby for nearly half an hour, speculating to ourselves about why so many of their tables were closed and why there were so few servers if this was a notoriously busy time during the weekend.

While we were waiting, we also noticed the lack of food being passed around by the servers. Supposedly, when a customer turns up the green side of their tumbler, the servers come by with more meat. There were a lot of empty plates and green tumblers in the time we spent waiting in the lobby.

Slow service is forgivable when there's a rush, but it seems like they should have been more prepared. Their failure to honor our reservations made my brother want to change restaurants; this idea was echoed by the whole family when we got to our seats. When we were finally seated, we sat down to filthy dishes. My mother had something splattered on the side of her glass; my father had something on his glass too, a spot of food on his knife and something dry and crusty all over his napkin; my brother also had a large spot of dry food in his glass; my napkin was either dusty or covered in something like flour. The waitress (who took quite a long time to appear) offered us their traditional fried bananas (?) and began rattling off their menu items. However, we decided to leave at that point - without a bite of food.

To their credit, the waitress rushed over and grabbed the manager when she saw us leaving, who attempted to make it right. He offered us a few comps, but we told him if the dishes were that disgusting, we couldn't imagine what the food was like. Plus, the food is just too expensive for the service we had received.

When we left, we went to the Cheesecake Factory. In the first three minutes we were there, while we waited for the rest of our party to arrive, we were offered seats by three employees and the manager himself. Every table in the restaurant was open and our service was incredibly fast. Plus, there was so much food, it practically felt like "all you can eat" anyway, which made us very happy we had walked out of Rodizio.

I'm sure that if we had eaten in a peak dinner hour, the service at Rodizio Grill would have been better - but they should have been more prepared for a busy Saturday. (This is not abnormal for downtown Denver) However, my family and I will not be giving them the chance to prove my theory correct. I have NEVER walked out of a restaurant before, but I'm very glad I did today.

• Pros: Manager seemed proactive
• Cons: Filthy dishes, long wait despite reservations

01/01/09

I WILL NOT GO BACK TO RODEZIO GRILL EVER EVER

by ulikelytogothereagain

I have been to Rodezio grill at least 10 times. Every other time I have been very happy with it, thats why I have gone back. We went there 4 days ago, it was very different from the other times. They seemed like they were trying to cut costs, we had to wait much longer for the servers to bring the meat to the table, when we caught on to this we asked for extra so we didnt have to wait as long and they seemed put off by this they were very rude and so was our main server as well as the hostess. The lemonaide was warm. I WILL NOT GO BACK THERE. People should boycott this place, we paid good money and we got ripped off. At 35 dollars a person we shoud have been treated much better and had better service!!!

• Pros: Brought water in a timley fashion
• Cons: everything else

12/09/08

Worst service poor selection Not tasty!

by sam38a1

This was my 2nd visit to Rodizio Grill And my last time going to this Restaurant. Very poor service.