BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Avon

If I could leave a 0 or (-) star I would. It all started at the very beginning walking into the restaurant we saw there was just under half the capacity, walked up to the hostess and she asked how many, we told her 5 with a high chair. She stated that there was a 15 minute wait, I looked around said nothing and sat down letting my wife make the decision on waiting or leaving because she was the one that was super hungry I didn’t care either way. So she put our name in and we waited. About 4 minutes later and group of 3 walk in was told the same 15 minute wait however they asked for the bar and was seated at a high top table inside the bar area. Ok I get that whatever. At this point one of the servers I can’t remember his name but he had his hair in a ponytail and was wearing glasses came over and told the hostess “you did fine it’s not that we’re short on servers it’s the fact that the kitchen crew needs time to catch up, at least that’s all that I could really here because we had 3 kids with us not really being loud but just being kids. 10 minutes go by and a couple walk in was told 15 minute wait but they were given an excuse as to why there was a wait time, we didn’t get a reason why. At this point there are 4 different groups waiting to be seated. 20 minutes go by we’re finally being seated. A nice blonde walked by and politely said I will be with you shortly, however the ponytail gentleman said I’m gonna take this table. At that moment I knew exactly why he wanted to take our table, my guess is she was next up to have a table but he wanted to take care of us. Anyways, I had a feeling they wanted to retaliate against us not sure why but ok like I said at the beginning after we were told the wait time I just sat down didn’t say anything, ok. A few minutes go by he came back said his normal you know “have you been here before blah blah blah” we said yes took our drink order brought our drinks and that was the last interaction he had with us. The group of 3 that came in after us sat down a few tables down from us and he was their server too. We decided what we were going to order and placed the menus down letting him know we were finished. Waited waited and continued to wait, so I mentioned to my wife that it was confirmed and he was in fact retaliating against us. He would walk by not say a word we were sat next to the kitchen so I could see through the glass and watch what he was doing. He brought out the group of 3s drinks and then walked by us again not asking us if we were ready to order or needed more time but just ignored us. I told my wife that if he comes back out and walks over to that table and gets their order first we’re out of here. So that’s exactly what he did and we got up made sure he saw us and walked out. Him nor the hostess stopped us or anything. Their job was to make us wait until we got so fed up and left. From the time we got there waited the “15” but more like 20 minute wait, the 5 minutes it took for him to acknowledge us, 7 minutes for our drinks and then waiting another 20-25 minutes to never getting a chance to put in our food order, and may I remind you we had 3 kids a 9yo 5yo and 2yo it was over an hour total. Just absolutely...

We visited BJ’s on 11/13/23 around lunchtime for my boyfriend’s birthday. We were in a party of 3. We were seated promptly and our order was taken soon after. It was a relatively small lunch crowd, not surprising considering it was noon on a Monday, so the place was definitely not packed. We waited quite a while for our food to come out. Not a huge deal, because I do not mind waiting .. it gives us time to chat and visit. Our 3 orders consisted of Mahi Fish Tacos, Oven-Roasted Salmon and Chicken Alfredo. The couple that was seated 10 minutes after we arrived that was next to us (that had the same waitress, mind you) received their food and were paying their bill by the time our food arrived. We were all 3 immediately unimpressed with our orders, but we were hungry and decided to give them a try. My salmon was over cooked, the broccoli was bland without a speck of seasoning. My boyfriends breadsticks were hard as drum sticks. I am not kidding, you couldn’t even pinch through the bread if you tried with all your strength. The Alfredo was bland and just tasted like heavy cream poured over noodles and chicken. The fish tacos were cold and tasted fishy.. and not in a good way. We complained because all three of us hadn’t even eaten half of our food. Our waitress then tells us “oh yeah, the broccoli here sucks.. they do not season it at all. No one likes it!”

Okay? Why let 2/3 of us order it as a side, then? If no one likes something, a heads up would be nice. Blamed the concrete breadsticks on sitting in the window too long, yet 15 minutes earlier said that she had brought all our food out the second it was placed in the window. So how’s that make sense? THEN, she mentions another waiter that she is supposedly having to “babysit” as he is “autistic” and can only handle two tables at a time. This guy was not our waiter and had nothing to do with our service at all, so why she felt the need to mention him or his autism is completely beyond me. That really threw me off and was the last straw… the manager ended up giving us of useless coupons that we couldn’t use unless we spent more money, which we obviously will not be doing. The only coupon for anything free were for kids’ meals and there were no kids with us, nor do any of us even have any children. Since it was my boyfriend’s birthday, she offered to bring us a coupon for a free desert at a later date.. of course that coupon wasn’t even there in the pack when we looked at them in the car.

Obviously we will not be back. For $80 for only 3 people, no appetizers and no desserts… this was well below mediocre service. We could have went to Rick’s Boat Yard for the price of what we paid for this awful food and experience.

I think it says a lot that every review in the last 30 days, aside from only a few, is only 1 star. I wish I had looked at the reviews before taking my boyfriend here for his...

UPDATE - figured I would give this location one more chance as a special night out with my son. Immediately we knew the experience was going to be marginal at best. The music playing was not only loud but typical of what would be played at a night club on a Friday night. Conversation was difficult and my ears by the end of the dinner. We were greeted quickly by a hostess with an attitude and made a face when i asked for a booth. I have back issued and booths offer more support. I counted 8 booths available at the time that could seat the 2 of us. I was told it be 20 minutes or more before we would be seated. When I questioned why with all the clean booths...I was told they were trying to keep all the people together and not spread out the servers so the section was closed. I took at table and within 5 minutes...6 out of the 8 booths were used! The only redeeming service this time was Kristine our server. She was great! The quality of the food was ok. We ordered mozzarella sticks but they were terrible. They used to serve flat rectangle sticks with great flavor. We were served with the traditional round sticks that were definitely prepackaged and frozen. Telhe hamburgers were good and cooked well. Fries were greasy and cold. This restaurant continues to go down hill. I think this will be out last visit.

This BJs has been one of my favorite places to go for over the past several years. The food has always been excellent, service outstanding with a good atmosphere. However my most recent experience indicates this restaurant may be running out of steam. On Father's Day we took family out to this restaurant because they do not have one near them. We gave it great reviews. Upon showing, with call ahead seating and a half filled dining room it still took 20 minutes to get seated. No one was in a hurry to provide service. It wasn't until the manager stated someone will seat us that I commented we have heard that 6 times in 20 minutes that we were seated. After sitting down, it was another 5 minutes before a waiter took drink orders only to be told all of the craft sodas were out of stock. Another 20 minutes later we had drinks. As we ordered, 50% of what was originally ordered was out of stock including their signature prime rib dinner! How does a restaurant not have simple things like sirloin steak and prime rib. As for the atmosphere, with a half filled restaurant we still had to shout to talk because the music was outrageously loud and awful. Who wants to hear hip hop music screaming through speakers while trying to have a dinner conversation. Even the food quality has gone down. The shrimp on my plate were rubbery and the dish was room temperature. This restaurant needs to step it up or there will be another vacant building along the most traveled...