![]() Despite the love Brazilians have for American cities such as New York and Miami, Arri noticed the perfect atmosphere for a Brazilian steakhouse. So, I decided to consider this idea more seriously."Īfter visiting steakhouses in Europe and in the U.S., the brothers decided to open their first international branch in Dallas, Texas. "They asked us to open a churrascaria abroad. "São Paulo is the best city in Brazil for food, and there, we'd receive many tourists that went crazy about the large pieces of meat and the lack of menus," Arri says. The Cosers took their first expansion steps years later when, in 1986, they opened the first Fogo de Chão branch in São Paulo's Moema neighborhood. In Brazil, it was later adopted even for Italian restaurants, pizzerias and, more recently, to sushi and Japanese food. Enter the rodízio movement's so-called Second Wave: The service style is theatrical, a kind of servers' ballet, unlike anything else in restaurant business. When they took over the first Fogo de Chão in the '80s, the Coser brothers decided to upgrade the rodízio concept: bringing steakhouses from roadsides to the commercial centers of cities, and offering a fine-dining experience with fabric tablecloths, aproned servers, crystal glasses, and an elegant dining room. ![]() "I saw a connection between the Brazilian gauchos and the Texas cowboys." "The simplicity of the culinary style is incredibly tempting." "The rodízio is a brilliant way of serving barbecue," says acclaimed Brazilian chef and pitmaster André Lima de Luca. ![]() As these roadside venues gained popularity, more tables were added, making them looking more like restaurants than gas stations and stores. The meat was usually cooked outdoors in tin-roofed rooms, where charcoal would burn on the ground and bricks would support the skewers, originally made of wooden spears. Rodízios took the country by storm, becoming popular throughout the South during the ‘70s. Grilled meat was the easiest and cheapest food to serve, as the region had many cattle herds - and actually was the kind of food hungry travelers were looking for. The concept became popular during the mid-20th century, coinciding with Brazil's big road-construction boom restaurants started to open around the country to feed truck drivers. But according to legend, rodízio was created by mistake in a restaurant called Churrascaria Matias in the state of Rio Grande do Sul: Per the story, a waiter delivered a meat skewer to the wrong table, but let the guest take a little piece of the roast anyway, kick-starting a sensation. It's almost impossible to determine who invented rodízio, as many restaurants in Brazil claim the title. Many restaurants in Brazil claim to have invented the rodízio style of dining. So how did the Fogo chain in particular come to define the "Brazilian steakhouse" to millions of American diners - 5,000 miles away from its Brazilian origins? and Brazil, as well as one joint venture location in Mexico City). Fogo de Chão, for example, is on track to grow by 10 percent annually over the next five years (the chain currently operates 42 company-owned locations across the U.S. "However, it did very well in 2015, up 16.5 percent from 2014, and did $607 million in sales, up 12 percent from 2014."Īs the steakhouse category as a whole continues to rake in profits, Brazilian steakhouses in particular hope to join this joyride. "From a chain perspective, the 'Brazilian steakhouse' is a relatively small category," says Kevin Schimpf, a senior research analyst at the restaurant consulting firm Technomic. And that's not to mention the independently owned Brazilian steakhouses that don't belong to chains. In the last 20 years, the "Brazilian steakhouse" category has grown and gathered even more chain concepts (besides Fogo de Chão and Rodizio Grill, there's the Dallas-based Texas de Brazil and Tucanos) which, together, have 92 units spread all over the U.S. Rodizio Grill, which debuted in 1995, takes credit for that - but it was Fogo de Chão's aggressive expansion that introduced Americans to a new way to eat meat - an unlimited way, so to speak. The restaurant wasn't the first Brazilian steakhouse chain in the U.S. How did the chain come to define the Brazilian steakhouse to millions of American diners - 5,000 miles away from its origins?
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