Blu Jam Cafe — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Blu Jam used to be a very good restaurant (all the L.A. based locations as well)... However... I haven't been to one since before the pandemic. Today we went to the West L.A. location on Wilshire (just north of the Santa Monica city line) and while the food and coffee were very good... The way the restaurant is now run is terrible. I dont have a problem with restaurants who prefer to not have a dedicated wait-staff or prefer a new paradigm of running things... But this place doesn't seem to know how to deal with people. You order by scanning a QR code but the host told us to look at the menu using the QR code but when we want to order we'd have to go to the front and place the order there. When my partner went to place the order the same guy told her that she could've just ordered from her phone. This became the first of many wasted trips to deal with whatever we need. They bring the coffee I ordered along with cream but don't give me a spoon so now I have to go chase one down. It's not the worst thing in the world but I'm 60 years old and walk with a cane so it's a bit annoying.... and this repeated itself over and over... yet they still seem to expect a tip like they've waited on us like a full service restaurant. Now don't get me wrong... I believe in tipping and tipping very generously when it's deserved.... at a normal restaurant with good service I'm very good with tipping 25 to 30%. But at this place they're self ordering "machine' starts the tips off at 15 & 20%... other than bringing out our food and drinks we never dealt with anyone at our table. They never came by to ask how the food was or if we needed anything else and so on (like napkins, etc). Like I said... I am good with self service restaurants but they don't seem to know how to do it seamlessly... I'm not looking to be coddled but show some care for the customers who patronize your business. The prices are now sky-high which makes their lack of a dedicated wait-staff seem like a way for the owner to be as greedy as they can be. Paying $23 for eggs Benedict at a self serve restaurant is a ripoff. So welcome to the future... I'm good with it but place like this need to still give out better service to their customers. But you can't raise the prices so high while cutting off any service or connection with a living human. Sorry Blu Jam but you are now on the naughty step and have...

I have very mixed feeling about my experience at Blu Jam Cafe. The food was really, really good. Pretty much every other aspect was not-so-good. Let's just say, it's great if you love ridiculously long waits, condescending hostesses, and poor service.

Let's start with the good: the food. I had the Blu Jam Benedict. Delish! The combo of ham and bacon gave it something a little special. They skimped a tad on the hollandaise, but the eggs were cooked to perfection. The potatoes were okay. Nothing to write home about. My friend had the Steak Hash, and she said it was really, really good. We split the French Toast Churros. They were yummy, but needed more of that vanilla drizzle. I'm SO glad I didn't get it as my main/only dish. It would've been a major disappointment. But we split it as a side treat, and that worked well.

Now for the other stuff. We jumped on the Yelp waitlist (which I highly recommend) just before noon on Sunday. It said to arrive by 12:42 to check in and that it was a 45-60 min wait. We arrived on time and I approached the hostess to see what to do. She said that if we were in the list (which you can view on a tablet near the restrooms), you're okay. At 1:15, I saw my name disappeared. So I checked with a different hostess who scolded me for not checking in. I'm sorry I didn't know that it I couldn't trust the other hostess... but you don't have to scold me for it. She put us back on the list and we were seated about 10 min later (more than double the estimated waiting time). Then it took 12 minutes for our server to even acknowledge us. The food also took a long time to come out (which doesn't really bother me, but on top of all the other waiting... ugh). They brought out the wrong French toast. They fixed it, but ended up charging us for the wrong/more expensive dish (we were overcharged by $1, and instead of waiting a thousand years for our server to fix it, I ended up taking it out of his tip). While we were enjoying our food, I noticed that the people next to us had an issue with their bill too, and they were waiting for their credit card. They waited quite a long time, and that's when I decided to pay by leaving cash on the table. Good thing too, or we'd likely still be there waiting for our credit slip to be...

My latest visit to Blu Jam was definitely memorable, but not in a good way.

My girlfriend and I get there and we choose to sit outside. The lady notes it and says we'll get a table when it's available.

When a table opens up, she points to it; she directs a male server to lead us to our seat and walk us through the ordering process since it has changed to a digital system.

The man doesn't seat us, but tells us to get seated and he'll come help. At the same time another customer walks up to it from the street and sits down.

Okay, awkward situation, since we haven't gotten there yet, we told the server and he looked pretty disinterested as if it wasn't his problem. That's was a little surprising.

We just go to the table anyway since it was ours and the customer understood that there a queue you be seated.

Once we sat down, no one came up walk us through the ordering process, but it's pretty straightforward. The male server eventually gets to us and begin the ordering process.

As the amount of customers dwindled, it was pretty surprising how long it took to get our food. There may have been 3 or 4 active tables, the others had their food long ago and just idled by, most of the indoor customers were on their way out. In fact, about table had to inquire about when they would get their food as well.

The food was average at best on this day and overpriced for the quality, quantity, and experience.

The male server only checked up on us once besides initially taking our food order. When we (and the other table) inquired about our order status, we had to flag a busboy to check up on it. It also took long to get someone to give us the check so we could pay and leave.

I'm not sure if everyone checked out that day and it was near the end of their shift, but it made for a...