BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Fairlawn

There was a wait when we arrived, but it didn’t take too long to be seated. This location appeared to be pretty clean with friendly staff. Now on to the food.. A few of the options we requested were not available, so we had to find alternate items.

Appetizer: Mac n cheese couscous bites…these bites were cooked perfectly with very little excess grease. It paired perfectly with the sauces they provided. This was shareable as there portion size was appropriate.

Drinks: the blueberry sour was not my cup of tea. It tasted like straight liquor while the blueberries had the consistency of the bubblegum that is at the bottom of snow cones from an ice cream truck. Definitely expected better with how expensive it was. Will not order it again. My husband ordered an imperial stout and had no complaints. Coke and water were fine.

Main meal: We ordered 2 ribeye steaks with sides cooked medium rare. They were cooked appropriately and melted in your mouth. My husband had garlic butter and blue cheese added as a topping to his, which created a savory taste. The portion is overabundant and would probably benefit from offering a smaller portion for a lesser price for those who can not finish a 14oz. We both had to ask for boxes. Our biggest complaint with the steaks? The fat could have been trimmed a bit more as there was quite a bit.

Sides: the brussel sprouts with siracha was not a favorite. It was highly disappointing that there is an upcharge for the sprouts when the flavor was lacking, and this is coming from someone who obsesses over sprouts. The steamed broccoli you couldn’t really go wrong with. The steamed vegetable variety had good flavor to it. Add some garlic butter to it if you want something extra. The white cheddar mashed potato turned out being a decent selection as well as the potato did not taste like instant.

Our server: it did not appear to be super busy on our waiter’s side, but we are not sure what all he had going on. It took some time to clear the appetizer dishes, which honestly wasn’t a huge deal. What did get frustrating was asking for a Coke 3 times before receiving it and waiting about 20-30 minutes on a water refill even though we had it on the edge of the table with our appetizer dishes. He did however bring the water without us asking. He had walked past our table multiple times without checking in about refills or the wait time with the food, which ended up being about 45+ minutes. He was pretty sociable and friendly even though we had to wait. He was prompt with bringing our boxes and check.

Pros: Premises clean, steak cooked properly, friendly staff. Large selection to choose from whether food or drinks, some vegan and gluten free options if desired

Cons: a bit pricey, portions too large, food wait times too long, drink refill took multiple reminders, many options not available when we ordered even though we were not told initially they were out or not available.

Side note, our server did tell us they had a few servers not show up which made it slightly busy when we questions about not receiving our refills.

We have no pictures...

Horrible experience. Order takeout over the phone at 3:30pM for curbside pickup at 5:30pm my sister and brother in law and their two toddlers kindly went to pick it up for us, when they arrived they called curbside and waited on hold, no answer, so my brother in law went inside to the takeout counter, had to wait 10 mins before anyone acknowledged him, by that point there was line behind him of people waiting for orders so the host asked them for all the names of the orders. He Waits another 5 minutes she comes back and asks what’s the name, he tells her and she says okay we are packing that up. Then comes back 5 more minutes later and asks again what’s the name? And says oh we don’t have any orders under that name. So I then call and they say there was a technical error the order did not go through… because the restaurant is out of ribs. It’s now 6:10, I did not receive any notice that the order didn’t go through. They are out of the main two items we wanted and the person is apparently out of a call center, he apologizes and asks if I want to speak to on-site takeout manager. When the on-site takeout manager comes on the phone she does not apologize just starts making excuses about how they are in a pilot program with the call center for takeout orders and tells me that this is the first We are speaking with someone at the actual location. Which is not true since my brother in law has been waiting over 30 mins at that point at the restaurant and received no apology. She was very rude and only offered for us to order something else. At this point I am not confident they can get anything to us so I say no we don’t want to place another order and wait can you send a giftcard for our trouble since you have made us wait 40 minutes with no food and no apology. And she agrees to send a giftcard takes my information says it will be in my inbox within the hour. This manager should take a lesson on customer service, instead of making excuses, apologize and offer multiple alternatives. It’s not the customers fault you are in a pilot program. This is one my husbands favorite places for food but unfortunately any takeout experience here is complete chaos and the management takes no responsibility for poor service or mistakes. When you have screaming toddlers waiting for 30+ mins on a call ahead takeout order that never comes and 7 other people waiting for food including someone who is 8 months pregnant, and you don’t even...

Our family group of 11 tried to make reservations online at this BJ’s location, but on the website it said groups of over 10 must reserve a spot on the waiting list in person with the hostess. We arrived at 5:45 and were told by the hostess it would be about 7pm when we get a table. We placed our name in for the wait list and were told we’d get a text when ready. Some of us killed time until 7 at the mall next door, and some of us ordered drinks at the bar. Around 7:00 we came back in and the hostess seemed surprised, then the hostess came and said “just so you know, you guys have another 45 minute to a hour wait.” When we questioned what happened that caused another 45 minute to an hour wait past the time she originally said, she got condescending and insisted that she had told us AFTER 7:00, which was false. My mother in law asked if we could sit at separate tables near each other and the hostess said yes, she could split us into tables of 6, 4, and 2, but one person couldn’t pay the bill for everyone, each table would be responsible for paying their own bill. When my father in law asked to speak to a manager at that point, the manager came out with an attitude and kept telling my father in law to “calm down” before a word was even spoken and acted like he was going to physically attack him, saying things like “sir back off” and “you need to calm down” and “don’t come at me like that”, even though he was in fact, not coming at him at all. The manager cut him off every time he tried to speak. The manager ended up saying that he actually could find a table for us, and asked in a condescending tone if that sounds like a good idea to us. He came back a few minutes later saying that the table was available and ready. When we questioned how a table magically appeared after saying we would be waiting another 45 minutes to an hour the manager continued to have an attitude and act like we were unreasonable for wanting to be seated when we were told that we would. He even asked my father in law to step aside with him to discuss it further but continued to tell him to calm down instead of listening to him explain the problem. We ended up getting reservations at another local restaurant that was able to seat us within 15 minutes. We will never return to this BJ’s location again due to the attitudes, unprofessionalism and ineptitude of both the hostess and ultimately the...