CJ's Urban Cafe — Restaurant in Moorpark

My 5 stars are for the 2 employees handling all of the customers on Sunday 5/1/22. (The establishment and their food was average.) The girl that was taking orders and running food was impressive! The gentleman making the food just kept his head down and was trying to keep up with the ticket orders. But hats off to the girl because they were definitely short staffed and she was doing the best that she could, running around the whole place while still smiling and giving good customer service to everyone! She made ordering so simple for me which I appreciated. Because it was my first time there, I was too hungry to look over options and so I went with what she recommended. *TL;DR: redheaded girl working is a beast! The cook was doing his best to keep up. They worked so hard they deserve recognition for their efforts. They get 5 stars, the food and place gets 2.5 stars.

I was heading towards Oxnard when I decided to pullover to get food. It was around 1 pm, I had been driving all morning with nothing to eat and it just got to the point where I had to pull over to get food in my system. After a quick food search on my phone CJ’s urban cafe was the first thing that popped up so I went for it. I didn’t want to overthink where to eat, again I was too hungry to take the time to do that! I was hoping for something quick but unfortunately that wasn’t the case but not the staffs fault. -The food : basil chicken panini, it was ok. I was hoping for the food to be a healthier option. (I count my calories and macros) It reminded me of field trip food that you get in grade school. Lol! After eating, the food made me bloated and it felt like I cheated on my diet. -The place was awkwardly quiet, nobody really was speaking unless you were ordering, no music, the lights were turned off, and because they were short staffed the food took a while to come out, and you can see little things were getting neglected like the trash cans being full. But I really tried to look past all of this because it was hard to watch the staff keep up. And so I sat down and tried my best to be patient and not think about my hunger or the uneasiness going on inside the restaurant. I was really hoping that it wouldn’t get to the point that someone would start giving the staff a hard time about the wait because you can almost...

I never leave reviews but I had to because one of the workers was super rude and gave attitude when I asked nicely if there was a possibility if they could remake my friends panini due to a severe allergy reason (thankfully, they caught it on time and didn’t take a bite). This worker instantly was rude about it and refused to remake it because they said “I told your friend what was in it and they didn’t say anything” when we did ask and most likely skipped it over or it was likely forgotten to be mentioned when he was telling him, I don’t know because I didn’t order it. Its not like I was asking for it to be remade because my friend didn’t like it a certain way but because of an ALLERGY condition, something out of his control. Imagine if an accident did happen where the paramedics had to show up because that worker refused to remake a panini. There was no need to be rude about it. Never...

Do you appreciate a restaurant that serves consistently great sandwiches? Here is your place. This was my favorite place until I moved away pre-pandemic. I recently returned for a work week and it's the same great place and the owner has kept a high standard for upkeep. Sadly, not the same size lunch crowd, I remember when it was hard to get a table. But I guess that's the result of a hybrid work week. I just took a co-worker here for lunch and he said, "Wow, I have to come back...