BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in San Mateo

On July 4th on the way back to Fremont from Purisima Creek Trail, Halfmoon Bay, we decided to try the $13 menu from this restaurant since we did try it last time we're there. We got to be seated right away, there are quite a few people on Friday. Our young server were quite pleasant and attentive. We ordered the California Pizza on flat bread which we liked last time. My wife tried the southern fried chicken and I wanted the soups and salads. My wife like the pizza very much and the fried chicken, she said it was so moist and tender unlike any other fried chicken breast dry and tastless. I had a taste and it was very good, the corn and the mash potatoes were very tasty. My caesar salad was cold and seasoning to my liking, the chicken tortilla soup is flavorful just like the soups in good restaurants in Chihuahua and Guadalajara I used to eat. I tried the clam chowder and I was glad it wasn't thick, or watery and rich like some other restaurant. It's just right with some tabasco. There are plenty of clams meat and little pieces of potato. The dessert chocolate chip ice cream on some cake that I can never remember the name was very nice. All included. After a nice hiking on beautiful trail of Purisima, this meal really hit our spot and the prices were amazing. The mobil pay is quite convenient and quick.

This is the first time I’ve been in one of these BJ restaurants. This restaurant is in a big shopping center with plenty of places to park. The place is very nice and clean inside, all tables are far from each others so we can chat away without anyone noticing LOL. The menu is quite excellent with many things to choose from and the prices are quite reasonable, no wonder some restaurants are always busy. Monday through Friday they have special menu with dessert included which is excellent. I ordered Jambalaya, my wife ordered the seared ahi salad. We ordered the flat bread California pizza as appetizers to try and it’s so tasty and light. The Jambalaya wasn’t runny with sauce, different but extremely delicious since I’ve tried many places and I love this dish. I liked this one here a lot. My wife’s salad was so good that she ate it all and didn’t let me try any. My other family members other different dishes and they all liked it. The signature dessert here was quite excellent. I’m going to try the soup and salad all you can eat. The soup and salad looked so tempting. Definitely will try BJ again with other dishes. The young lady server was so pleasant, attentive and fast...

I stopped by here with some family for dinner on the way home from a bay area trip. I ordered the sirloin steak cooked rare with asparagus and clam chowder along with the zucchini string appetizer. The zucchini strips were incredibly salty and 5 out of the 6 people didn't eat any more after their first taste. My clam chowder came out soon after and was very good, there were more clams in it than potatoes. However my steak was at most cooked to blue, maybe reaching around 100 degrees but no where near the 125 degrees to be cooked to rare temperature. I was going to send the steak back but we were on a bit of a time crunch and I don't really mind a blue steak, however everything about the steak was disappointing. There was no real sear on the outside of the steak. It was quickly turned on the grill just leaving a very thin layer of dry Gray meat and a few small faint grill lines on either side. To top it all off the amount of rub on the outside of the steak was excessive, overpowering, and way too salty. I was unable to even taste the meat with that much rub on it, I ended up cutting most of the outside "sear" off the steak to finish it. Between the overall cook of the steak, the lack of a sear, and the amount of seasoning on it, the steak was terrible and I wouldn't serve that to someone eating over at my house so the chefs should be somewhat embarrassed to have sent this cut of meat out. The asparagus was very dry and not prepared correctly. The bottom ends of the stems were not broken off, some even had roots on the bottoms of the shoots. A little olive oil and a small amount of salt it all that is needed when roasting asparagus but this dish had neither of these. The wildly inconsistent seasonings of each dish was a huge let down. To top it all off the tablet at the table used to pay our bill allowed one of us to pay our share of the split bill before freezing. This required our server to have to come split the remaining tab. This took 15 minutes and several trips back and forth between our table to the kitchen. This was my second experience at BJ's, the first at this specific location and it will probably be a long time before I give them another try. Overall a very...

Unfortunately the last two visits at BJ's were horrendous. The first one was about 3 weeks ago and we came in to eat lunch there were four of us. We arrived early so it wasn't very busy. Our one hour lunch meeting turned into a 2-hour Fiasco. Through all the disruptions and wondering where the food or when the food would arrive at our table, our productivity level dropped dramatically. The food didn't arrive until about an hour and 15 minutes or so after we ordered it. They apologized once saying that they had two large lunch catering orders. Yes, that was their excuse two large lunch catering orders. I guess next time we'll order in house and have it delivered to our office.

Well guess what? We decided to give them one more chance . That's just about what we did. Last week ordered food for 6 people to pick up. My associate arrived five minutes early from when the food was to be ready. They said at that point they were just finishing up the order it'll be about 5 to 10 minutes. He was fine with that walked out called us to let us know he would be on the road soon. An hour later he was still waiting we were all hungry, and once again our meeting was disrupted through the static and major distraction of dealing with this incompetent restaurant. And you'll never guess what their excuse was? Absolutely, two large lunch catering orders. Yes, that was their excuse two large lunch catering orders. Seeing a pattern? Well our pattern is shut down. Never again will we take a chance and endure what we did with BJ's Restaurant. By the way just to be fair to the overall chain, this occurred at the Foster City location in Foster City California. We hope to share this with many others so they don't have to go through what we did and others who were waiting for food and very upset. One poor lady was waiting for lunch for her son who was on a lunch break. They finally gave her his food I think she said 5 minutes before his lunch break with ending. Suffice it to say I hope he has a lenient boss who will let him eat...