BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Brookfield

I have reached out to BJ's as a corporation and called already to speak with a general manager regarding a very offensive and discriminatory experience as a result of choosing to dine in at this location on May 29th of this year.

I was invited to a high school graduation dinner of a relative, who previously worked at this location and made a reservation to celebrate her monumentous occasion. When we arrived a few minutes early, everything was fine. There were only a few people in the restaurant and it was a very slow night. There wound up being one other smaller sized graduation group there the same night and maybe one or two couple tables.

LeAnne, our server was slow and ineffective as a server for a party sized group, particularly for the purpose of the dinner. As a former food server and bartender, we initially gave her a lot of grace. Throughout the dinner, I personally had to wait on a cup of soup for over 45 minutes. When the group was served, we had to remind her several times of items that we had ordered and she had to go and ring in our orders as she had clearly forgotten. I noticed that she was likely inexperienced with dealing with parties of approximately 10 people, which was odd since there were other servers available to work with her to meet the needs of the group size.

After forgetting several items, bringing out the wrong drinks, having to be reminded of what people ordered 20 minutes previously, I looked around and saw most of the party having at least food or drinks in front of them with the exception of three people who had absolutely nothing. The server asked for last orders as the kitchen was closing and yet people still were waiting on items she claimed she had rang in over 30 minutes prior. This was when I asked for the manager. A manager, Bram, came to the table with an obvious attitude, as if he was offended that the manager was asked for despite us having such a poor quality experience.

When Bram came to the table, I expressed the above in more detail and he said very sarcastically, "Well what do you want me to do?" As a Black woman, surrounded by a group of Black people, I had seen this kind of situation happen before. I asked him to start with bringing out the food so the people with no food at 11 pm could finally eat. I also asked if there could be an incentive to the bill or something, to show some consideration for the multiple inconveniences. He walked away bringing the food back and compensated for the items that we waited on far too long (3 meals). I was satisfied, the party was satisfied, I thought this was the end.

Unfortunately, after leaving the restaurant my younger relative (a 17-year old black girl), called me and told me what happened to her after returning to her normal work schedule. She was insulted by a girl, Jade, over the phone saying various negative comments that were completely untrue. Jade and ultimately LeAnne lied to other servers and gossiped about a young Black girl to the point where she felt the need to quit her job because she was so disappointed and hurt by these women spreading lies at work. These employees spread rumors about her and our family, saying that we came in late to the reservation (we were early) and we wound up only tipping a dollar (tipped over $30) on the bill among other racially insensitive and insulting comments that were untrue.

I would hate for any one else to go through this kind of experience working or dining in to this location of BJ's. This was an extremely dissatisfying experience, and it is so unfortunate that this is the kind of work environment that this corporation allows, especially since I never received any communication back after trying to resolve the issue with a general manager. I strongly encourage Black people, and people of color generally, to neither work at or dine into this location of BJ's. I seriously recommend these employees be spoken to and reprimanded for their behaviors. Discrimination and Bullying is not okay, and this should be made clear to the employees and supervisors of...

What started out as a hectic day, dinning in at BJ’s Restaurant/Brewhouse in the evening made it all worthwhile!

I was running a hockey practice and was very grateful to have another coach help me out as my primary assistant coach could not make the practice.

To show my appreciation I decided to treat him to a meal. We choose BJ’s R/B to dine in, not only because I have always had great service there in the past, but the location is ideal.

Upon walking in the doors, it was like walking into a jam packed arena. The place was buzzing! Overall the vibes were amazing, it was very clean, and felt like a very welcoming environment!

The hostess, Sophia could have been stressed to the max, however welcomed us with open arms and was as polite as humanly possible. There was a wait, which is understandable for dining in at 7pm. Sophia worked with the servers to find us a table as quick as possible.

Immediately after being seated, Alesha greeted us. I seriously believed that she owned BJ’s. She was beyond informative with her detailed knowledge of the menu as well as their amazing craft beer selection! Let me just say they have an assortment of beers that puts most bars to shame and that’s hard to do in WI…we love our beer!!! I had a few questions about some of the items on the menu and without hesitation she was able to answer my questions. She also explained the specials and provided us with some outstanding recommendations.

One would think that due to the sold out capacity that we would be waiting a looong time for our food. Alesha gave us a few updates on our order and it was out fairly quick…well before I thought it would be.

I settled on the deep dish pizza and a cup of clam chowder. If I was kidnapped to an unknown location and fed this clam chowder, I would have believed I was in Boston. It was so fresh! The deep dish pizza was unbelievably tasty and delicious!!! Obviously, the beers were flowing!

During the meal, Alesha checked on us several times and made sure the food was up to our liking. Best of all, we never had even a half a glass of beer! She was beyond polite and cheerful! I had to ask if she had some sort of ownership in the brand based on her extraordinary service! In all my years of finning out, I don’t believe I have ever had such amazing service!

After the meal, Alesha explained payment options and brought us our check. Before I was able to pay, Casey one of the managers on site checked on us. She asked a few general questions that a manager would ask, such as; how was our service, food quality, cleanliness. I assured her that this was an amazing experience and that I would give them two thumbs up and if my toes counted, I would put them up as well!!! Casey chatted with us for a few minutes and genuinely seemed to care/value our input. Casey is the type of manager any business would want to hire to make sure the operation runs smoothly! Alesha should be waitress of not only the month of BJ’s but waitress of the month in the entire country!

This place is the absolute best! Huge Huge Huge thanks to Sophia, Alesha, and Casey!!!

I will be back a ton...

What can I say about BJ’s? It turns out my memories of BJ’s from when I lived in CA 20 years ago were wrong.

The positive: The pazookie is still amazing. But it’s a reminder that desert is the only positive about this chain. There was a reason back in the day we would only go for desert and never dinner.

The negative: We were seated fast at 5pm on a Saturday but that is where the problems began. Immediately a waitress came over, began complaining about her co-workers, said that this wasn’t a table in her section, but was going to take it anyways. We ordered drinks, a soda and a mixed drink and an appetizer. Soda came right away but the waitress said the bar was slow so to be patient for the mixed drink. Twenty minutes later the food runner brought the he appetizer but we still did not have the mixed drink and we had not seen the waitress again. We could see the drink sitting on the bar at the server station so we asked the food runner to grab it.

Waitress finally revisits table after being there for 40 minutes. Makes no mention of the drink she never brought. She takes our dinner order. I ordered the New Orleans Jambalaya. 20 minutes after ordering dinner the waitress comes back to our table and says the kitchen cannot make the Jambalaya and that I would have to order something else. I went with just a classic burger.

We get our entrees finally after being in the restaurant for 1hr 15minutes. By then, we both need drinks again. We did not see our waitress at all during this time.

After we are done eating our entrees our waitress reappears. We ask for water and order pazookie (the whole reason we came). As we are waiting for the desert, the hostess comes up to our table and accuses us of just walking in and seating ourselves. By now we’re been in the restaurant for over 90 minutes. It was the most hilarious yet inappropriate thing I’ve ever seen.

The food was okay, nothing special, not good, not worth the hassle.

What this experience comes down to is a total lack of management in the restaurant. I don’t blame our waitress (though it was very inappropriate to complain about coworkers and tell us she was taking someone else’s table and then completely ignore us.) I blame her manager. If the manager was the guy in khakis and a checkered button up, running around endlessly like everything was falling apart: IT WAS. And it’s your fault. As a service industry veteran I can tell you that it comes down to poor training, poor standards, and poor enforcement. This place will not survive unless something changes significantly.

My suggestion: do what we used to do in California. Sit at the bar, don’t order food, and just get a pazookie. If you do anything else you will be put through one hell of a laughable experience and will leave...