After finding success in the Tri-Cities area, the owners of Boiada Brazilian Grill are opening a second location in downtown Spokane.

Friends and Brazilian-born restaurateurs Josiane Ballin and Hélio Vieira say they plan to open the all-you-can-eat Spokane restaurant this spring, after some remodeling that will bring the look of the 7,000-square-foot former Maracas Mexican Restaurant's esthetic in line with Boiada's Brazilian flair.

Ballin says Boiada, which translates to "herd" or "cattle," specializes in the churrascaria style of Brazilian grilling, in which meat is cooked rotisserie-style and salted with coarse salt.

"The meats we serve rarely have a special marinade or anything like that. It’s a natural meat, grilled Brazilian-style, with only a specific kind of salt," Ballin says. "The meat cooks in its own juices."

Ballin says she and Vieira plan to replicate the Tri-Cities restaurant for its Spokane location, including the menu and hours of operation. When the Spokane Boiada opens, it will employ up to 35 people, she says.

Most meats are served rodizio style, in which servers circulate through the dining room with freshly cooked meat still on the rod on which the meat rotates as it cooks. Portions of meat are sliced from the spit at the table and served.

Rodizio meat options include sirloin cap steak, flank steak, parmesan pork, leg of lamb, and grilled shrimp. A rodizio dinner is $53.

Boiada also offers a fresh buffet, which Ballin says includes options for vegetarians. In addition to typical salad bar offerings, Boiada's buffet includes Brazilian cheese bread, fried polenta, artichokes, and soup. The buffet also has farofa, a toasted yucca flour dish made with Portuguese sausage and bacon, as well as feijoada, a traditional Brazilian bean and sausage stew. The fresh buffet alone is $27. The price of the buffet is included in the rodizio dinner option.

A light dinner option, which includes a single portion of rodizio meat and a trip to the fresh buffet, is $32 to $36.

The dessert menu features confections such as Brazilian flan, passionfruit mousse pie, cheesecake, crème brulée, and molten chocolate cake.

Boiada will open Monday through Thursday for dinner service only. The restaurant adds a lunch service on Friday. Brunch, lunch, and dinner are available on Saturday and Sunday.

Boiada has a full bar. Specialty cocktails at Boiada are made with cachaça, a clear liquor distilled from fermented sugarcane juice.

Vieira started in the restaurant industry in the kitchen of a Brazilian restaurant in 2004. Ballin's background is in project management, so she handles most of the administrative aspects of running the restaurant.

Ballin and Vieira opened the first Boiada location in Kennewick in November 2019. Ballin claims the fact that the restaurant managed to survive the first couple of years of the COVID-19 pandemic is a testament to its popularity among Tri-Cities residents.

"Based on the success of this one in the Tri-Cities, we're very confident that it's going to be successful in Spokane as well," Ballin says. "We want to bring the same concept and part of our culture to that area."

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