PolyAI Helps Fogo de Chao Greet Callers with Brazilian Flavor

Fogo de Chão is a Brazilian barbecue restaurant chain with about 110 locations globally, 88 of which are within the United States. The company, whose name is Portuguese for “ground fire,” started in Brazil in 1979 and is now headquartered in Dallas.

With that many locations, Fogo de Chão receives millions of calls every year. But for many years it was missing about 25 percent of those calls due to high volumes and after-hours inquiries.

“I think the least hospitable thing to do is not answer the phone; it’s like somebody coming to your house and you don’t answer the door,” says Michael Breed, Fogo de Chão’s chief marketing officer.

In looking to eliminate missed calls, executives wanted to do more than simply answer the phone. They wanted guests to receive the same friendly greeting from an automated system that they would receive from a human.

“We started thinking about the customer experience that we wanted to create,” Breed recalls. “We started with the idea of a digital concierge and how to deliver southern Brazilian hospitality to our guests at scale. We wanted to leverage technology to deliver hospitality, not to replace the human connection.”

Fogo de Chão selected selected PolyAI voice artificial intelligence solutions to power Selma, a lifelike agent delivering warm, helpful conversations for every guest call across all of its U.S. locations.

“PolyAI had a reputation in the industry for a number of things, including the quality of the voice experience with conversational AI; they had a low-latency solution; they offered very natural human conversation; and we could train the model for our environment,” Breed says.

Affectionately named after the chain’s brand matriarch and chief cultural officer, Selma Oliveira, the voice AI solution “allows us to be there for our guests before they even walk through the door,” said Barry McGown, CEO of Fogo de Chão, in a statement. “She embodies the same warmth, care, and hospitality our teams bring to every table.”

Selma helps callers with FAQs, checks availability, books reservations directly through OpenTable, and enrolls them in Fogo Rewards. When human assistance is needed, Selma routes calls to the appropriate team member.

Since Fogo de Chão has a Brazilian essence, it was important that any solution could fluently handle both Portuguese and English. “It had to have the proper pronunciations and represent the brand well. We also had to have a partner that had something omnichannel, so we looked at chat, SMS and other systems,” Breed says.

The restaurant first piloted the Selma AI assistant at one location on Mother’s Day in May 2025. The results were outstanding, which prompted it to roll out the solution across all its U.S. locations.

“We saved three hours on the phone on that one day. Guests were able to book tables that were available at [off-peak] times,” Breed says. “It was a huge win for our team and a huge win for our guest.”

Since rolling out the solution, Fogo de Chão answers 100 percent of calls, a vast improvement from the estimated 75 percent of calls before.

The automated system is also programmed to ask callers if they are enrolled in Fogo de Chão’s loyalty program. If not, the system asks if it can send a text message with a link for the caller to learn more. About 40 percent of guests who discuss Fogo Rewards with Selma opt in.

Selma currently has a 95 percent guest satisfaction and 88 percent booking completion rate. Over 12 months, Selma is projected to deliver more than 250,000 reservations and contribute substantially to incremental revenue.

Breed expects to keep the satisfaction level very high, perhaps even improving on it as it looks to add Spanish-language capability, the ability to continue automated phone conversations via SMS, and the ability to answer more complex customer questions. 

The Payoff

Since incorporating PolyAI’s voice AI, Fogo de Chão has achieved the following results:

• a 95 percent customer satisfaction rate;
• an 88 percent booking completion rate;
• a 40 percent signup rate for its loyalty program; and
• a call-answered rate of 100 percent