BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse — Restaurant in Thousand Oaks

Joe, the manager, was the only reason this review got any stars.

After a long stressful day, I wanted to have a beer and eat dinner with my girlfriend. It was late, about 10pm so I was just happy to see BJs open. To give BJs the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was the time I went in that made the experience so bad.

I like to start reviewing with positivity, so I will say this. Joe did everything in his power to make it a better experience. He was apologetic, sympathetic, and remade the food. That said it was a negative experience.

First off I ordered a beer, some food, and some appetizers. The appetizer came first, which was chips and guac. The guac was basically only smashed avocados. It had a little tomatoes, and a tiny bit of yellow onion and cilantro in top. As such it lacked any real flavor. It was, truly just a bowl of avocado with tomatoes top. I want to clarify that it wasn't just the lack of tomatoes and onion that made the guac bad, but an entire lack of seasoning or lime juice.

The second issue came from the fact the waiter only came back about my beer 10 mins after the appetizer arrived. They didn't have the beer, so I ordered another one. It was about 15 mins later after that when I got my beer. Which took quite a while given how slow the restaurant was.

About 1 min after I got my beer the food arrived. The chicken and rice were room temperature, as were the sweet potato fries. I really had wanted to have my beer before the food, but that wasn't possible. We were never asked off we wanted ketchup or anything for the fries either.

After complaining, Joe can to our table and replaced the chicken and fries with fresh ones. The fries actually had salt on them the second time, and the chicken was good.

All in all, I'd like to think I was just unlucky and had a bad experience. But given this was my first experience, I'm unlikely to go to a BJs again. At the very least I would be hard pressed to ever suggest this...

Well, well, well... where do I ever start? We arrived at bj's around 9:15 pm and we were promptly seated which was the best part of this meal. Our waitress Laura didnt come and take our order for over 30 minutes!.. OH LAURA .. this is not a good start to our meal! As we are ordering she makes it quickly known that it should be common practice to roll your eyes at your customers and huff and puff when you ask for a straw. My son ordered broccoli cheddar soup with bacon in a bread bowl. She couldn't hide her feelings of disgust with the fact that he wanted bacon on it. When the soup came it was NOT in the bread bowl .. she tried to argue and say that he did not order a bread bowl. I spoke up and told her that he, in fact, did. another eye roll and a *huff amd a puff * later... she said that she would go get the bread bowl and take the one soup off the bill. I got up to use the ladies room and almost slipped on water that was on the floor. I told LAURA. She looked right through me and walked away. I flagged down another waitress who promptly cleaned it up (wish I knew her name because she was awesome!) And offered to get the manager for me...who never showed up to talk to me. So, after being there for almost 2 hours I paid the bill... got up to leave and went to talk to the illusive manager. Did he offer anything because of this awful dining experience? No. He told me that LAURA is going through a lot in her life. This place is a joke. The food is ok... and the manager and servers could care less about the...

So, we haven't been to BJ's for about 5 years. Today we decided to give them another try. Now, I remember why we haven't been back.

Started out well, seated quickly and a server, not ours, but helping out, got us our drinks.

Wife ordered the Apple wood bacon cheeseburger and fries. I ordered a large meat lover style pizza, deep dish. It is half price on Monday.

Her sandwich and fried arrived with the pizza, her meal was barely lukewarm. My pizza, still in the pan in which it was baked, was only warm in the middle. Also, I guess because it is half price, it had almost no cheese on it, what sauce there was they probably applied with a small paint brush. There were, maybe 8 pieces of pepperoni on it, a few pieces of ham, some small pieces of sausage, and not much else. So, what i got for the half price of nearly $18, was mostly bread. I asked our server, Brice, to have them slightly overcook the crust, as I like it crispy. He ordered it that way, but he was more like sponge cake than pizza crust.

Yes, it is a holiday, we made allowances for that and the slow service, as several people called out because of the Holliday. Still, the manager (?) Spent a lot of time shooting the breeze with some old friends, while the servers were overwhelmed and an older couple stood up at the check in podium, awaiting his return to be seated.

Brice was the best part of the experience. He reheated the burger and fries, with a smile. He was not happy with how things were going...