Rodízio

Rodízio (pronounced [ʁoˈdʒiziu] in Brazil) is an all-you-can-eat style of restaurant service in Brazilian restaurants. In most areas of the world outside of Brazil, a rodízio restaurant refers to a Brazilian style steakhouse restaurant. Customers pay a fixed price (preço fixo), and waiters bring samples of food to each customer several times throughout the meal, until the customers signal that they have had enough.[1]

In churrascarias or the traditional Brazilian-style steakhouse restaurants, servers come to the table with knives and a skewer, on which are speared various kinds of quality cuts of meat, most commonly local cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and sometimes atypical or exotic meats.[1] The exact origin of the rodízio style of service is unknown, but the traditional story is that this serving style was created when a waiter delivered a meat skewer to the wrong table by mistake but let the guest take a small piece of the meat anyway.[2] Rodízio became increasingly popular in Brazil in the mid-20th century and spread around the world as experienced servers moved to open their own restaurants.[2] In Brazil, the rodízio style is sometimes also found in Italian or more recently Japanese restaurants.[2] Italian restaurants serving pizza are especially common.

Most rodízio courses are served right off the cooking spit and are sliced or plated right at the table.[1] Sometimes, they are accompanied with fried potatoes, fried bananas, collard greens, black beans, and rice (self-served buffet style).

In many restaurants, the diner is provided with a colored card. Green, on one side, indicates to servers to bring more meat. Red, on the other side, indicates that the diners have enough meat for the moment.[1]