BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Melbourne

BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse, 1700 W. New Haven Avenue, Melbourne -3-Stars (Chain Restaurant Rating)

Established in 1978 in Southern California--and named for one of the founder's daughters, Beverly Jean--BJ's has grown to 215 restaurants in 29 states as of December 2022.

BJ's Restaurants, Inc. has its own Beer Club. Since 1996 its seven breweries have produced hundreds of thousands of barrels of beer, many of which have been awarded gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival. You would therefore expect BJ's to have a huge beer menu, and it does. It also has a full liquor bar.

The inside of this restaurant is ringed with televisions. The place is packed with customers, which in and of itself is impressive. It strikes me as an Applebee's-style restaurant. And although it started out as a pizzeria in 1978, the menu is very diverse, going way beyond pizza to classic bar food, pastas, salads, burgers, chicken, steaks, and sides. There seems to be something for everyone, even Avocado Egg Rolls for the vegetarian.

Jeffrey was our waitstaff. He was average. If you were to create a baseline for restaurant service, he would be the exact median. Jeffrey will never be on the BBDO's Top 5 Servers in Brevard List, nor will he be on the worst. In fact, if every experience I had with waitstaff was like the experience I had with Jeff, it would make this hobby easier. I guess I give him about a B- in "Server."

I know that looks can be deceiving, but even the food photographs did NOT make the food at BJ's look appetizing to me. But, hey, at least I wasn't overpromised and underdelivered.

I ordered the BJ's Classic Rib-Eye, a reported "Fan Favorite" with Roasted Asparagus and New Loaded Mashed Potatoes. There was no flavor, but the steak was cooked to temp and the mashed were fine. Nothing about this meal made me a fan, but it also did not make me a foe.

Next, I tried the Bacon Cheeseburger, described as a fire-grilled beef patty with applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and dill pickles, with BJ's signature burger sauce on a premium parker house bun. This was the star. Unlike the recent dismal stupidity of smashing a burger until all the gusto is gone, BJ's served a real 3/4-pound burger cooked to temp. Again, no real seasoning in the burger or in the side of fries that came with it, but at this level of food preparation you get loads of average folks wanting average food and BJ's gives it to them. At least they provide salt and pepper shakers at every table.

If you are here for a beer with the gang, a place with a kid's menu, or a half-way decent burger, and if watching several TVs while in a crowd appeals, then you are in the right place. However, if you are an idiotropic seeker looking to go within as you mindfully consume extraordinary sustenance, you'd be better off eating someplace else.

The Big Boy says, "For average food, average service, and average prices, this is...

We went here for dinner on Sunday 6/29. I was highly disappointed in the service provided. Not blaming it on the individual server, but the overall service of this establishment.

When we came in we were seated immediately. After a short delay, we were able to order some drinks and an appetizer. But once again, it took a while for it to get back to our table. Slight delay, it was acceptable as the restaurant had filled up during this wait time.

THEN we ordered our food!! We finished our drinks and appetizer, and had to finally flag our server down to get another round. This was just the beginning. We waited over an hour for our food, no one came to our table to check on us or explain why put food was delayed. I finally was able to flag down our server and was told the manager would be coming to speak to us. Well, we waited a short time again and the manager finally came to the table with our food. (Pizza and jambalaya). She was just going to set the food down, but I commented on how long we had been waiting for our food. She was crass in the way it came across and blamed it on the kitchen making the wrong pizza, and came back with "well I'm going to comp your pizza". I am sorry, but being someone who was in the restaurant industry for years. This whole experience was unacceptable. If you know someone's order is delayed. Specially THAT long, you pass by the table and explain it, or let the patron know.

When we got the food, the pizza was fresh and hot, however, they had let the other dish (jambalaya) sit under a warmer apparently, and it was just lukewarm. By this time, I was done and ready to leave, which were did after getting to go boxes and our check.

I will not be back to this BJ's, don't know if it's this location (mall), or just bad management. But for the price being paid for their food, this should not...

If I could give less than one star for the experience I had about a month or so ago, I absolutely would. it was my wife's birthday, and the other times we had dined at BJ's were pretty great, so she wanted to go there for her special day. The meals themselves were mediocre (less and less tasty since the first time we went there), but my BIL's jambalaya was AWFUL - overly spiced to an overwhelming point. I have never in my life sent something back to the kitchen, and always try to rationalize, but this dish was inedible. We had the server (who was sweet -- all of their servers are so so nice) bring it back, didn't request another meal or anything. They offered to take it off of the check, which they did in the end. We just went along with our dinner (despite finding a gnat in my water) until the very end. A woman who I can only assume was some sort of owner or manager that day came up to our table and wanted to know "what the problem" was. She was EXTREMELY rude and, after we explained to her that the flavors just weren't sound, she just told us that it was authentic and that's just the way it tastes and that we just aren't used to those spices.

A professional might throw her opinion about it around with a customer, that is fine, but this woman was pushy, wasn't at all sorry that we had a bad experience, and clearly was the type to not take any negative commentary very well. We just nodded our way through her conversation with herself, and decided that it is just not worth returning to the restaurant.

I was so shocked by her attitude that I failed to get the woman's name. If I had it, I would suggest that maybe she get retrained on how to work with patrons who have a less-than-stellar experience at...