BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Fort Collins

Decided to try BJs last Friday for our family outing. To say disappointed would be an absolute understatement. Ordered drinks and an appetizer. Drinks took significantly long to arrive even though it was 2 sodas and a lemonade. By the time the server brought them we jokingly told him that we thought he forgot about us. Ordered food when he brought our drinks....waited for the appetizer. And waited. And waited some more. It never showed up. When I tried to get the waiters attention he quickly gave me the hold on hand gesture and proceeded to hit on the 2 girls in the booth behind us for another 5 minutes saying him and the bartender have a game they like to play and guess what kind of drinks they would enjoy. After listening to him talk about absolute nonsense I tried to get his attention again. The second time he turned around and didn't even acknowledge me. By this time the food is coming out. We ordered the prime rib dinner with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Well... no asparagus...still no appetizer and the prime rib was so fatty and over cooked. We were going to send it back... a THIRD time we tried getting the waiters attention and he finally decides to come over. I let him know that our appetizers never showed up and that the prime rib was not up to par. He says...well your appetizer should be out at minute now...I told him the point of an appetizer is to eat it before the meal comes and that we didn't want it anymore. Also let him know we were missing asparagus and the prime rib was undesirable. He proceeds to ask if we still wanted the asparagus or not. I tell him well yea..it comes with the $30 entree I just ordered. Let him kindly know that if he had been more attentive in the 2 other times I tried to get his attention that we probably could have avoided alot of the situation. He then says.. well the prime rib is on me since it's not cooked right. He didn't ask if we wanted it recooked to our liking. And brought cold plate of asparagus back. At this point we were just so frustrated with the food and service we got out of there as fast as we could. I tried to reconcile the situation with the waiter and he just didn't seem to care. Considering the bill would have been over $100 I will find elsewhere to spend our hard earned money....

Where do I even start with this awkward experience? I really wanted to dine in somewhere and at the moment Bjs seemed to be the only place that was even doable so we chose to give it a shot. Bjs is a pretty high standard right?

First of all we were forced to sit outside, not asked, forced. It's 40° out.... the entire restaurant was empty and everyone was outside. Not sure what was up with our waitress either. But she seemed sketched out that this was even an option and that it was the only option at the time from what I gather. This is me assuming tho. I get covid is playing a key factor but the restaurant is huge and social distancing would be easy there. Our table wasn't clean and neither were the chairs, and to add there was spit out chew packets under our table. Yuck! It took all my might not to get up and leave right that instant.

Anyhow we order our food and it comes out pretty quick and that was surprising, but as you can imagine we ate as fast as we could because we were sitting outside in the cold! Placing a few random electric heaters isn't going to solve anything either as the wind was slightly blowing. Our waitress was also happy that we came in at the warmest time of the day! Wait what? It's winter...

The soda was flat, the food was alright, completely over priced for what it was, we were never even provided with napkins, had to get up and ask for that, I needed a drink refil, had to ask for that, asked for ranch with my pizza, had to ask again for that and I wasn't even offered a box for the rest of my pizza. Also if someone is ordering a burger to be smothered with mushrooms, why use a canned or bottled mushroom? Get some fresh mushrooms and grill them! Cmon Bjs up your game! Honestly we shouldve ordered a pizza from Krazy Karl's and stuck to the plan. Need to be supporting mom and pop spots not these chains. 50 bucks for a kids meal, a small pizza and a burger....

First time diner tonight (October 19, 2022). When I first walked in, the building looked really nice and immediately the staff was very friendly. Those are the only two positive things about this restaurant.

My date and I started with an appetizer (garlic knots) that were served on a dirty pan. The knots seemed fresh, but were really lacking in the garlic department. Unfortunately, we didn't notice the dirty pan until after we'd finished the knots and moved the paper they were sitting on.

Then came the entrees. I ordered the baked ziti and my date ordered the fettuccini alfredo. To start, the presentation of the ziti was horrible. It was served in the pan that went through the oven and placed in a standard bowl, so it was kind of a bowl in a bowl (which I thought odd.) I could live with the presentation if the food were actually good though. The penne seemed to have been cooked to a correct consistency, but was so oversaturated with oil that none of the dish would stick to them. I tilted the pan and could see massive amounts of oil just rolling along the bottom of the pan. On top of that, the cheese seemed to have been one solid piece that I was able to pick up with a single fork and half of the dish came with it. The whole thing was sort of congealed into a giant pasta and cheese goop hanging off of the fork. I ate less than half of this dish before I wasn't able to stomach it anymore and had it removed.

My date's dish, the alfredo, looked far more appetizing. The presentation was nice, the broccoli and chicken looked amazing, and it was a huge portion size. By all looks it should have been amazing, but they said that it was just very bland and not at all memorable.

The only reason I didn't give this a one star review is because the staff were great. If I were to go somewhere for a drink casually, I'd definitely come here and just avoid...