BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse - Laguna Hills, California

Sean B.

I hate that I have to leave this review because I really love BJ’s; they have good food, decent pricing and all else. All of that being said, the service is subpar at best.
I work in the restaurant construction industry, not only that, but was a project manager directly for building BJs across the country. I have been there at the end of construction, present for their training of the new crews at dozens of locations and heard it hammered into all the new hires about the seven steps of service. New hires would not even be allowed to pass the first round of cuts if they didn’t get every single question right on their initial training tests.
Oh, how they have fallen.
“No auctioning off of food”. This went from a standard step of training of “what not to do” to something that happens every-time I eat at BJs. On my visit last week, there was a salad that was ordered by a child in our party and no one remembered he had ordered it. The child was in the restroom when the salad came, so when it was being auctioned off “Caesar salad? Caesar salad?” and no one knew whose it was, so we sent it back. If the food runner was following protocol and knew what seat position had ordered it, then it would have been a non-issue.
Salad came 3 bites before our entrees. 4 sets of apps came out 15-20 mins prior, but no salad. Once the salad came, it was either eat it or a warm entree; not both.
Pre-bussing….argh this is my biggest pet peeve. We ate dinner with plates upon plates, upon plates piled up in the middle of the table just to make room for our dinner plates. Not one plate was pre-bused of all we had and for the 20 minutes after our food was dropped off, no one returned to our table. No checking on the food. No asking if we needed refills, no asking if we wanted to put our desert order in. Nothing.
Eventually we went to the front, asked for the manager and she was helpful to get things going. They got the piles of plates bussed and put our desert order in. She was responsive and helped make the best of a bad situation, but sadly the tone of the night had already been set.
I wish I could say this was the first time, but it wasn’t. The level of service has really dwindled to the point of where I just expect my salad and appetizer plate to be on my table until after the check has been paid. Even with 2 people eating, the food will be auctioned and the 7 steps of service is something no current server even has a concept of.
I’ll still go here, but I now just temper my expectations to be realistic for what I know I’ll get. I’ll likely enjoy the food but not to expect more than the service you’d figure to receive from a Barstow truck stop at 3:30am.

Daryl Y.

Love this place for birthdays. This place is popular for weekend dinners and there is usually a wait. Sitting at the bar area, they do have bar specials that are really good deals. Beware of special days like graduation night or holidays cause they get extremely busy. My daughter loves the Tri tip, my wife the ribs. I love the double bone in pork chop. Enjoy.

Irene D.

We stopped @ BJ's for a quick bite. We ordered the avocado egg roll and the 10 pieces bone-in chicken wings. They're both savory and great appetizers. The wings had a little kick, but not too much. The avocado egg roll was crunchy and freshly made.

The staff at the front were very courteous and friendly. Someone opened the door for my mom, and we appreciate that a lot. On the other hand, I can’t say the same thing to our waiter. Yes, he did everything ok, but it is the little things that separate an exceptional customer service vs. just an ok service. He brought 1 to-go box for 2 different dishes. Yes, I could have jammed everything into one box, but I'll be mixing the flavors. I didn’t want to ask him for a plastic bag, so I took the liberty to go to the front and asked a staff member instead.

David S.

Good location and food. The seared ahi salad is my favorite. Great selections of veggies, avocados and pickled cucumbers. The light vinaigrette dressing really pulls it altogether. The seared ahi is tastefully done. Waiter was accommodating with bringing extra rolls.

L. R.

This place is always crowded but we prefer to sit in the bar which is never a long wait for a seat. We ordered and enjoy the drinks here. This time decided to get the lemon pepper wings and a side salad which tasted great. Our waitress was kind enough to split our check accordingly and was attentive. The only thing that was an issue was not getting all our food items delivered together since some were left waiting while some had food. They do have happy hour items but we didn’t order off that menu.

MPH M.

NO HEATER!!!!
It was SOOOO uncomfortable trying to have dinner on 12/13!! So cold outside, just as cold inside!! NOT inviting at all!! FREEEEZING!! Ridiculous!!
Even though I told them the ladies room needed attention, 1 of 4(?) stalls had NO TOILET PAPER, nor any SEAT COVERS!! Disgusting & no excuse! The last time I used it was at 9:30/10 pm, after any rush!! Come on, BJ's, get it together!!!

Jaymie F.

Our server was Alex and she was awesome. Good recommendations. Attentive with drink refills and very friendly! Finished it off with the Pizookie trio -- all Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Amanda L.

My family and I had dinner here last night but the service was really terrible, bad and all the food came out cold. My son's spaghetti was all shriveled up and dry and our soups were at best luke warm but were mostly cold. The worst part was getting a very unfriendly waitress who never checked on us or asked if we needed anything. Each time we needed something, we had to flag her down just to get her attention and she had the most disgusting and unfriendly look on her face regardless of what it was that we needed. She looked as if she hated her job, couldn't stand being there and that we were a burden to her or something each time we needed something for our meal. I should note that it wasn't crowded either so it wasn't as if the restaurant was busy or anything or her attention was needed elsewhere. I'm a valued BJ member, have eaten there many times in the past so it's very unfortunate to see both the service and food quality have gone down quite drastically based our our experience yesterday evening. Suggestion to management is to identify and retrain this server on what good customer service should look like and tell her to never act the way she did to any other customers. Hope she can learn to behave better and the overall service in general and food quality can improve. If not, this place will definitely lose a lot of business from their loyal and frequent customers. There were so many other places we could of went last night to enjoy a nice family dinner but we made the mistake of coming here.