Beer Nirvana and Good Pizza Too
Written: Apr 30 '04 (Updated Jun 14 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great Beer, Good Sports Bar and Family Atmosphere, Very Good Pizza, HUGE Menu Selection
Cons: Service has slipped a little bit, food portions on some items have shrunk
The Bottom Line: Try it...I think most of you will like it.
|
|
|
| heckonwheels's Full Review: BJ's Brewery |
First, a little disclosure…I do own a bit of stock in this company. I used to own a lot more but now just have a token holding in the company. That said, I’ll do my best to be honest and forthright about the restaurant and my experiences there.
BJ’s started out as a chain of small pizza restaurants in Southern California…almost always located within a block or two of a beach. They served a deep dish, corn meal crust pizza. They called it “Chicago Style” but it’s really just a good, ultra-thick pizza crust, not the real deep dish you’d get in Chicago.
This is still the main staple of the menu but BJ’s has grown dramatically from that handful of beach dining rooms and has experienced many changes along the way.
Two accountants who worked on the company’s books (at the time it was owned by a small company called Roman Enterprises) liked the restaurants and made an offer to buy the chain. These two gentlemen are Paul Motenko and Jeremiah (Jerry) Hennessy.
Paul and Jerry took over the chain and after a bit, they took the company public with an IPO. With this new money, they started the chain’s expansion to the point where today there are now 29 company owned locations, a licensed franchisee in Maui, and about 10 more opening soon. The bulk of the locations are in Southern California but there are also restaurants in Northern California, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, and soon in Nevada. The locations can be seen on the company's web site located at www.bjsbrewhouse.com.
The beach locations are still there and provide a nice, laid-back, and quaint dining experience but a chance opportunity to take over another restaurant location proved very fateful. The former Magnolia’s Peach, a 10,000 square foot stand-alone restaurant in the parking lot of Brea Mall in Brea, California became the first large footprint BJ’s. Since it had a lot of extra room and the boys liked their beer, Paul and Jerry also tried something else…they built their own microbrewery alongside the dining room.
That, plus the dozens of TV’s spread around (to show sports), along with BJ’s reputation as a family (and wallet) friendly dining experience was a big success. Now every new BJ’s follows this concept with either a brewery or a brewhouse (a brewhouse is a location with no brewery but instead has large, stainless steel tanks to hold the beer that is delivered from the brewery locations).
Now that you know the history, what’s it like going there?
In short, it’s a nice dining experience but has slipped a little from a couple of years ago. Here’s how I view the key points:
PRICE: Very good for what you get. Management says that the average price of a meal and drink are around $10. That’s pretty accurate. Lunch starts off around $5 for the nooner (pizza only) and dinner goes up to just under $20 for a really nice, grilled New York Steak. Dinners do not come with salad so you’ll need to pay a couple of extra dollars for a generous dinner salad. The pizza will average between $10 and $18 for a medium to large pizza. Drink prices are on par with most restaurants with their house brewed beers starting at $3.75 per pint and sodas going for around $2. Wine prices start around $4.
FOOD: Again, very good to excellent. The pizza is great. It has an ultra-thick crust and is served in the pan it’s baked in. Sauce is left off in order to serve it with stewed chunks of tomatoes (servers usually ask if you’d like the tomatoes on it when you order in case you don’t like them). A slice makes a pretty good meal by itself. One of my favorites is the Sweet Pig which is topped by ham and pineapple.
Pizza is only a small part of the story, however. There are over 110 items on the menu. The salads are very good. I especially like the Honey Crisp chicken salad. One thing I must note is that the size of the entree salads has gotten smaller over the last year.
There is a large selection of sandwiches too. The French Dip with it’s red onions and provalone cheese is delicious. The Club Sandwich is truly Dagwood Bumstead sized. I didn’t really care for the Meatloaf sandwich but others I’ve dined with love it. For lunch, you can get half a sandwich and a bowl of soup for $8.
For dinner, you can get delicious fried chicken, steaks, ribs, salmon and a whole range of pasta dishes. My favorites in the latter category include their great lasagna ($8.95) and ravioli with creamy tomato sauce ($9.75)
A wide array of tasty appetizers are available including jalapeno poppers, potstickers, wings, potato skins, nachos and more. They run between $3.95 and $11.95.
If BJ’s were to be famous for anything other than pizza and beer, it would have to be for its signature desert, the Pizookie. This is a large cookie, baked fresh in its own little pan (either chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, peanut butter or oatmeal raisin) topped with a large helping of vanilla bean ice cream. It is delicious and a bargain at $4.60 (enough for three people to share) or a huge party platter with all flavors for $14.95. A portion of each sale also goes to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help ease your desert guilt.
DRINKS: Sodas – a full range of Pepsi (bleh, says this Coke drinker) products plus their in-house brewed root beer which I enjoy on occasion. A decent size wine selection that features some very good wines will tempt you but what BJ’s does better than any other chain is BEER! They brew seven different brews and have won many awards for them:
BJ’s Blonde - A light, refreshing beer brewed in the German Kolsch style. It’s a pilsner-like beer with light bitterness and a satisfying taste. I’ll drink this on a very hot day.
PM Porter – A mild, brown beer (named after one of the CEO’s – PM stands for Paul Motenko) that’s not bad in cooler weather or with heavier food but I enjoy Anchor Steam more.
Piranha Pale Ale – My current favorite of their lineup. This is an American ale with a bit of a hoppy bite. It absolutely kills the thirst as it hits the back of your throat with just the right amount of bitterness. Very tasty too. I can drink this anytime.
Jeremiah Red – The other CEO gets the beer naming treatment with this one. Jerry’s beer is an Irish style red with a fair amount of bitterness and I will have this now and again when I want to take a break from my usual.
Tatonka Stout, Nutty Brewnette, and Harvest Hefeweisen are the other three. The Hefeweisen is okay, the stout didn’t do much for me and I haven’t tried the Nutty Brewnette so I can’t give you an opinion.
Sometimes the brewery will come out with a limited edition beer, such as a Christmas brew, along with the regular line up. They also make a hard cider though at the current time they have discontinued it as they try to come up with a new formula.
The CEO’s are also big fans of Belgian beers and carry a full range of these master brews including my favorite, Hoegaarden Witbiere.
UPDATE - 6/12/04: Had dinner at BJ's today and they tell me that Hoegaarden will no longer be stocked - too bad!
Along with the above, a full range of more traditional brews are served in bottles and the newer locations feature a full bar.
ATMOSPHERE: At the newer locations, it’s family-friendly sports bar. This is THE place to go when you don’t want to leave the kids but would like to see the big game. Big screens show the most popular events while smaller monitors scattered around the room show other sporting contests. The manager would be happy to change your monitor to the event of your choice if you don’t like what is being shown. Anyone from 0-120 is welcome and would have fun here.
The older locations are more beach-bum friendly pizza parlors. They’re small, have a more limited menu, and only serve wine and beer. They are still nice places to eat.
The Maui franchise location is it’s own unique world. Located upstairs and open to the Hawaiian breezes, it also features a full bar, limited menu, and some of the island’s best live entertainment.
SERVICE: This is where I have to take away the star. I’ve literally been to BJ’s hundreds of times over the last ten years and used to say that the service here could not be beat by anyone. There are still some real quality people working here but it seems that the recent expansion has diluted that somewhat, especially in the last couple of years.
In the last six visits we’ve made here, we have had some kind of problem or disappointment on five of those visits (yes, I’m counting). Four years ago, that statistic would have been reversed.
From food not being prepared correctly to, on our most recent visit, our order being forgotten, something just wasn’t up to snuff.
On that last visit, a manager did come up to apologize and gave us another round of beers and a pizookie on the house and I do have to say that most managers will go out of their way to make up for a less than expected experience…it’s just that they’ve had to do it more lately.
Also, customer comment cards are given to every customer with their bill and I know they are read…I just hope that the increased rate of expansion doesn’t mean they can’t give it the same attention to detail they used to.
OVERALL: BJ’s is still better than most chain restaurants in its class and I think if you’re used to the Olive Gardens, Outbacks, and Black Angus’ of the world that you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you visit here.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
heckonwheels
|
|
Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 14 members
About Me:
Southern California native who travels around the country a lot.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.