Under Brewhouse Whelming

BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse
5929 West Waco Drive
Waco, TX 76710
254.776.0200 TEL

               

           I know I don’t normally review chains, but with all the hype this place has gotten since moving into Waco I decided I’d throw my 2 cents into the mix.  BJ’s is one of the largest growing chains in the USA, and this is attributed to 3 main reasons; 1) They are a publicly traded company, and expansion is a must. 2) Their menu caters to a large group of people.  3) Quality is pretty standard all around. There is an article on them in last month’s National Restaurant News about their expansion plans that was pretty interesting. I will try to post parts of that later on.

I almost never go to a restaurant during the first couple of weeks. This gives them some time to get their game together on food quality, customer service, and such. I nearly went one weekend, during the first couple of weeks but I held off, and good thing to. I later found out, through a coworker, that BJ’s nearly run out of all their food to serve, resulting in a very limited menu that night. I also heard that they were still having problems with service, great turn around & sitting time, but lacking in service. 

I finally made my way down there one night, my cousins just got into town, so we decided to hit them up and try it out. Both of them have eaten at other BJ’s before, this is my first experience for this joint ever.

My cousins arrive there before me; by the time I arrive they already have their brews. I look over the beer menu, and ask our server for a couple of the house beer samples. The ones I try are alright, a little too bitter for me and I’m in a liquor mood anyways. I order their Mojito, since it is their drink special for the night for $5; which begs the question, if $5 is their sale price what is the regular price? Ouch! Don’t think I will be coming here just to chill at the bar, not with those prices. Lets not forget to mention that it also took 10 minutes to get my drink, our server made it sound like someone dropped the ball.

                While waiting on my drink we looked through the vast menu that BJ has. I personally think their menu is too much, but hey they have made a great success out of it, so kudos to them.  Still, it made it a pain for me to decide on what to eat. After a while I narrowed it down to pasta, salad and a pizza; I knew right off the bat though I didn’t want a burger or sandwich. After much debate I finally decided on a pizza since my coworker had previously recommend it and the fact that the first BJ’s was a pizza joint, specifically deep-dish. I ordered a small cheese, pepperoni, and roasted bell pepper pizza; minus tomatoes. My cousins went with a salad and pasta.

Our food arrives in a timely manner, but once we start to dig in we realize that we don’t have our napkins or silver-wear. We hail our server and get our gear. Then I notice that my pizza is wrong, it has tomatoes and the wrong kind of bell peppers. Our server offered to take it back and have them make a new one, but I didn’t want to wait for a new one and just rolled with it. Besides messing up the toppings, which is fairly baffling to me. The pizza was alright; nice crispy crust, flavorful sauce, good amount of cheese…. really lacking on the amount of pepperoni. Totally not worth $10 for the small, wrong, skimpy topped pizza. 

 

                Overall it was alright; food decent enough, service slightly lacking, nice atmosphere. Really over hyped though and overpriced; $18, $21 with tip, for a small pizza and a single drink? Really? I could’ve had a decent night at one of my local bars (of better drink quality) or ordered a couple of medium Pizzas (of equal quality) from Papa Johns for that price. On top of my lone experience, I keep hearing plenty of complaints from friends on the service at Waco’s BJ’s Brewhouse. These factors combined, I really don’t plan on going back any time soon. Once Waco gets over the “new smell” hype, Wacoan’s will get tired of the higher prices and lacking service and move back to packing in Chedders, and hopefully some of Waco’s great local joints.