BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Chula Vista

As a family, we rarely have the opportunity to all be together and dine out for dinner very often, so every dining experience at a restaurant is kind of a big deal. We used the online app to get in the queue for a table early. We requested a booth online. When we got there, we were seated at a table, but we were willing to let that one slide because the restaurant looked busy and at least we’re getting seated. We were sat next to a huge party, a party for a five-year-old, a five-year-olds party at a brewery. The party was broken up into two sections and was large with mostly children and only a few adult. One of the adults kept walking back-and-forth along the entire party, bumping into us as we sit at our table. So just as reasonably expected this group of 20 or so five-year-olds was loud, rowdy, and running around high on chicken fingers and sugar which honestly I expect any five-year-old to be at a party. However, I thought the location for this particular party was a bit odd, but that’s just my opinion And does not factor much into my rating. Now, when I say loud, I mean very loud, so loud that the four of us seated together, had to yell to each other to be heard. We placed our orders and made it clear that we understood that he was already dealing with a handful and we made it known to him that we understood and we were here to have fun and not complain. we ordered an appetizer of boneless , a deep dish pizza, nachos, and a kids meal of chicken fingers and fries. I communicated to our server that I understand Deep dish takes a while and that it would be OK for the kids food to come out first, the nachos and the chicken fingers that would be fine as we had an appetizer to munch on before the pizza would come out. The party raged on around us as we played an ad hoc game of Scattergories with scraps of paper and pens from my wife’s purse when the server came out with our food, he made it so close to us, but then he dropped everything. It was a tragic scene. It was actually the only time in our entire dining experience or the entire table of the kids got quiet. I told my family well good news and bad news guys, our food is on the way. Bad news Is that our food was the food that just hit the floor. We decided to just make the best of it and roll with the punches since we had ordered that appetizer and it was quite good. I watched our poor server clean everything up and run around trying to make the best of it. Shortly after the general manager came by with pizza and nachos, looking for who ordered it. He came to our table and I told him, yes that was part of our order. He apologized for the wait And asked us if we needed anything else. I informed him that our child’s chicken fingers were still missing and that I understood since I saw our original order hit the floor earlier. It was a little bit of a wait, and then our server showed back up with chicken fingers and an explanation and apology. we told him we understood my wife and I had spent years of waiting tables, so we knew what it was like our server informed us not to worry, everything would be taken off our check because of the wait and the disaster that unfolded. He asked us if we would like anything else. I told him that was great. Long story, short the nachos lacked toppings, the chicken fingers were good, and the pizza was terrible with a lack of sauce and being underdone. The general manager came back, introduced himself and told us everything would be taken off our check because of everything that happened. He asked us if he would like anything else we asked for the famous pizookie. When our server came back with the check, he told us that the manager took off the pizza and the nachos, but since the chicken fingers and sodas got there with no problem, they were staying on the check and not to worry about the dessert. It was very odd that the manager ended up charging us for part of the order when he told us it was all going to be taken off. We never complained, we were only grateful, it was disappointing that the manager went back...

Had to write something after the experience we had today.. my family waited 50 minutes from when we sat down until the time food came out even having ordered an appetizer. We weren’t visited once during that delay, not even to be given silverware, so when the food arrived we had to ask and then wait more time to receive it. We ordered the avocado egg roll appetizer which never came out, in fact they were holding our entrees waiting for the appetizer so the food was cold. It would’ve been nice if that was communicated earlier to have been given a choice in the matter of whether we wanted to wait for it or not because who wants an appetizer after the entree? The pizza was actually cold to the touch and the jambalaya was room temp. They switched waitresses to break our original one soon after we got our food and the new one was completely apathetic to the food being cold, stating she didn’t know what I wanted her to do about it. That reaction from her shocked me because all I said was the pizza was cold. She offered to reheat it or to take it to go. At that point we had been sitting for over an hour but we had been eating for only 10 minutes of that time. It had been enough time to even consider waiting for it to be reheated so I just asked for boxes to go and the bill and we paid and left. I still don’t feel right about leaving like that.

Sometimes things like long wait times are out of the control of the waiters or the kitchen, which is why I don’t name names and why I still tipped and didn’t escalate to speak with a manager or anything. As someone who worked in food service I empathize very much but that also means I know what good service looks like and I can say that from talking to the host who checked us in, to not being checked on by our first waitress and to paying the bill with the second waitress we had, this staff needs to raise the standard. Communication goes a long way when there are long wait times. Anyone coming through on a week day should expect long waits, cold food, and even...

This was my first time eating at BJ's. I had the tri-tip and ribs and loaded baked potato. The steak had a great flavor the only problem was a big part of it was kind of grisly and tough. The baked potato was excellent, good amount of cheese, it combined really well with the sour cream and butter.

My little girl had the personal cheese pizza and garlic mashed potatoes. The pizza had plenty of cheese good flavor yes I took a small bite, the mashed potatoes were nice and creamy.

The wife had the shrimp scampi, noodles and sauce. I did not taste it I am not a seafood person but she told me it was pretty good. Only complaint was they leave the tails on the shrimp.

Now what I think was the best part was their in-house made root beer. It had a great taste of sarsaparilla, very reminiscent of my favorite bottled root beer from Sioux City.

For dessert we had something called a pizookie , which is basically just a hot cookie with ice cream on top. You have your choice of chocolate, vanilla bean or strawberry ice cream. The vanilla bean was excellent but I am partial to vanilla bean.

Okay so the service was actually pretty great our servers name was Jeffrey I believe. We actually sat outside behind the restaurant due to covid-19, we are still not comfortable dining indoors. But there is indoor seating for those that would like it. The outside patio was nice roped off plenty of lights and heaters for the night time, and nice big red umbrellas to cover from the Sun, which kind of messed me up because all my pictures came out with a red tint to them I tried to fix it as best I...