Your Privacy Choices
California Privacy Notice
Is Brazilian BBQ Better at Lunchtime or Dinner?
Is a meal with a lot of delectable meat, in an all-you-can-eat continuous dining experience, better for lunch or for dinner?
Some of you are saying, “Well, that’s obvious!” And some of you are saying that while having the opposite opinion as the others saying it.
There are actually a few different answers to this question, and it’s a deeper topic than you might think, so let’s talk about it.
Table of Contents
Brazilian Culture, Almoço, and Jantar
The first thing we want to talk about is Brazilian culture. Because, after all, whether you prefer a larger meal for lunch or for dinner depends a lot on where you were raised and what the food culture was in that location.
In America, after all, dinner is generally the largest meal of the day. Breakfast is there to start the day and get you going, and lunch is possibly one of the smallest meals, simply because it’s crammed in a break in work hours. Dinner is when you come home and enjoy time with your family, eat delicious food, and settle in for the evening.
Did you know that in many other countries outside of America, dinner is not the largest meal of the day? It can be, of course. In fact, the word dinner itself carries with it the connotations of being a larger meal.
You can often tell whether a person was raised in a culture with larger evening meals or smaller evening meals by what they call it.
Dinner implies a larger meal, often a more formal meal, the sit-down meal you enjoy with friends. Sunday dinner after a long day of church, where the family gets together, or Christmas dinner, where everyone has gathered to celebrate around food, for example.
In cultures where the evening meal is a smaller, less formal affair, it’s instead often called supper. A supper could be even a little earlier or later in the day, but it tends to involve lighter foods and smaller portions, often in between other activities like a game night or heading out for an activity.
Some people even call “dinner” whichever meal is the bigger meal; supper is the evening meal, lunch is the midday meal, and dinner is whichever one of them is bigger.
You can see how these kinds of questions come with a lot of depth to them, right? Food culture all around the world varies heavily. Some cultures put a lot more effort into breakfast, while others treat breakfast as an afterthought. Some center around lunch, while others center around dinner. It all varies.
It can even vary within a given country, or location within that country, or within a given ethic or cultural heritage, or even within a single family. People develop their habits based on their lifestyles and adjust according to their culture and their needs.
Going back to Brazil for this discussion, you’ll find that the Brazilian lunch (almoço) is the biggest meal of the day. So much so that it has even been scientifically studied! Brazilian lunch is larger than breakfast or dinner (jantar), and has many more potential food items associated with it. 96.6% of Brazilians eat lunch, while only 92.5% eat breakfast, and only 87.2% eat dinner.
In some ways, this is the opposite of American food culture. Americans often prize their breakfasts, whether it’s just to have some food to start the day, or because of the culture of heavily-advertised breakfast products and breakfast-exclusive restaurants. Lunch is neglected, again largely because it’s a short break in the middle of a long work shift, and there isn’t much time to have and enjoy a larger meal. Dinner is the centerpiece of the day, food-wise.
Churrasco for Lunch or for Dinner?
Sure, Brazilians love their lunch more than their dinner, but the question wasn’t which meal is larger; it was whether Brazilian barbecue, also known as churrasco, is better for lunch or for dinner.
Things get a little tricky here because of the intersection of food culture and the realities of churrasco itself.
Churrasco is a large, heavy kind of meal. From the meat itself to the sides like feijoada, it’s elaborate, filling, and centered around delectable meats.
The trouble is that kind of food doesn’t come cheap. Churrasco in Brazil is often considered as much of a luxury meal as it is a standard meal item. Oh, sure, we’ll have a grilled meat here and there, of course, but full-on rodizio-style churrasco? Hardly.
Many Brazilians, in fact, only have churrasco every few months. It’s the kind of food you enjoy for family gatherings, for celebrations, and for special occasions. It’s a holiday fixture. It has a lot more in common with Americans breaking out the backyard barbecue and cooking up steaks or burgers than it does an everyday sort of meal.
When do Brazilians enjoy churrasco when they do have it? Trick question: it’s both! Often, a churrasco party starts early in the day and goes until late in the evening, with food available throughout.
The Texas de Brazil Experience
Here at Texas de Brazil, we’ve brought the Brazilian barbecue experience to life in America. Obviously, though, we’ve made a few changes to make it better fit with American food culture. We can bring delicious steak to American audiences without a whole lot of convincing, and the culture of the rodizio is a unique twist that isn’t too challenging for American audiences to enjoy.
We know better than to try to challenge the entire American workplace culture and get people to enjoy their largest meal of delicious meats in the middle of the day, though. We’re just one restaurant; we can only do so much!
So, when you want to experience Brazilian barbecue with us at one of our restaurants, you always have access to the dinner hours, and you might have access to the lunch hours, which are dependent on the location.
To break it down for you:
Hours and Availability: Lunch at Texas de Brazil may or may not be available depending on your location. Some of our restaurants only open at around 4 pm to start the dinner service, while others are open from noon or 11 am onwards.
Selection: This also depends on your location. Some Texas de Brazil locations have the full menu available for lunch as well as dinner, so your meal is going to be the same regardless of when you visit. Others have a more limited lunch menu, which tends to leave off some of the less in-demand items since it makes less sense to keep them ready to go when there’s less demand for them. We don’t want food waste if we can avoid it!
Price: Pricing depends on the location, as well, of course, and on the menu. If the lunch menu is the same as the dinner menu, so too is the price. If the lunch menu is limited, the price tends to be lower.
You can read a more complete rundown of all of this in our guide to lunch versus dinner at our restaurants here. If you want to find out what hours and menu are offered at your nearest location, all you need to do is look it up.
The Continuous Dining “Lifehack”
One thing we need to mention to get ahead of, just in case you had the idea and thought this discussion might be a good reason to give it a try: no, you can’t generally come in for lunch and enjoy the continuous dining until dinner and beyond. At least, you aren’t generally going to get what you hope to get out of it.
In locations where we have a cheaper lunch menu and a more expensive dinner menu, sometimes people have the bright idea to come in for lunch and see if they can stick around until the dinner menu is ready.
If we were all robots, that might work. But since we’re not, it’s pretty obvious when someone is trying that kind of “lifehack” to get access to the later menu. We also get around it by having a gap; usually, when a restaurant is open for lunch at a cheaper rate and dinner at a normal rate, there’s an hour gap in between where the restaurant is technically closed, to allow for resetting for the dinner menu. During that time, anyone sticking around will be asked to move along.
We want everyone who visits to leave satisfied, but we’re not going to allow for a loophole like that to be exploited. Fortunately, it’s not really that much of an issue, and we don’t frequently encounter people trying to pull one over on us like that.
Really Though: Which is Better?
We’ve put a lot of words on the page for this one, but we still have yet to actually answer the question. Is Brazilian barbecue better for lunch or for dinner? Really, though, the answer all depends on what you want to get out of the experience.
When Brazilian BBQ is Better for Lunch
What are the benefits of getting a bit of Brazilian BBQ for lunch? Well, let’s think about what you might be looking for out of your midday meal.
- Do you want a continuous dining experience where food is served immediately with no delay to order, brought to you throughout your meal, and available with minimal interruption?
- Do you want a good-sized lunch where you’re free to have as much or as little of it as you like, and take as much time as you need, as long as you don’t run over into dinner?
- Do you want to access a lighter salad menu where you can enjoy favorites like feijoada without the full expense of the churrasco menu?
All of these are great reasons why you should consider visiting your nearest Texas de Brazil for lunch.
Lunch might have a smaller menu, and a couple of your favorites might not be available, but that doesn’t make it any less of a great experience. It’s particularly good for times when you have a relatively limited amount of time to enjoy your food, and don’t want to waste time looking at menus, ordering, and waiting for food to arrive. Business lunches and other events are also great opportunities to try out Texas de Brazil.
When Brazilian BBQ is Better for Dinner
What about for dinner?
Here in America, dinner is usually the largest meal of the day, and it’s the one we’ve catered to with our fusion steakhouse design. The dinner menu is larger and more robust than the lunch menu, so you’ll be able to get your favorites and more of them.
- Do you want to bring your friends and family and enjoy a leisurely time eating all of your favorite meats, along with a wealth of traditional Brazilian sides?
- Do you want to relax for the evening with a couple of Brazil’s famous cocktails?
- Do you want to load up on all of your favorites?
If so, dinner at Texas de Brazil might be the best option for you. It’s where we really shine. Even if Brazil itself tends to have larger meals in the middle of the day, we’re adapted to the American way of life by shifting that schedule later.
Regardless of whether you want Brazilian BBQ for lunch or for dinner, all you need to do to get it is look up your nearest Texas de Brazil location. From there, you can call us or use the web form to make a reservation, or just check the hours and stop in when you’re looking to eat. Be warned, though, sometimes there’s a bit of a wait if it’s a busy day.
Don’t forget to join our eClub for special deals and discounts sent right to you, including promotions for birthdays and other milestones. Or, if you want to bring the delectable taste of Brazilian churrasco to you, we also offer catering! We just want everyone to enjoy everything that Brazilian barbecue has to offer, in any way you want to experience it.
