BJ's in Montebello

BJ's Restaurant

1716 Montebello Town Center

Montebello , CA 90640

323.201.5290

323.201.5294 FAX

I meant to start posting blogs on Food Ripple, like, 2 years ago. What ever happened to that idea? I don't know but here I am. Now let's begin.

Some of you may know I worked for BJ's for four years a while back. It is actually how I met my husband. I feel I know a lot about the company and being that I still eat there, I can see they haven't changed much. That's too bad.

I still eat there because the food is pretty good. So, why "too bad"? Because service sucks at just about every location. This time we're talking about the one at the Montebello Town Center. Service at this location is stifled by the inexperience of it's wait staff. My most recent trip to this location was November 2008. We waited at least 20 minutes for a server to greet our table. We were completely ignored for so long that I asked my husband if we should just go elsewhere to eat but just as we were discussing that, an apologetic server arrived and started taking our order.

Our entrees arrived before the appetizer. The food runner did not realize we hadn't received our appetizer so when our server came by we let him know we still wanted it. My husband's entree came out with a baked potato but he'd ordered mashed potatoes. Somebody brought out a side of mashed for him. As for me I'd ordered the Classic Baked Potato as my entree and I requested salsa instead of butter and sour cream (I'm on Weight Watchers trying to lose weight!) but my baker came out with butter and sour cream instead of salsa. Somebody went and fetched my salsa.

Meanwhile, we still didn't have our appetizer, which was the Lettuce Wraps (they are DELICIOUS. I get them every time.) and our table was full of stuff we did not order and nobody bothered to remove these things. The Lettuce Wraps arrived and we enjoyed them. A manager came by and sincerely apologized for the entire evening starting out bad and continuuing down that path. He comped our appetizer and I think he even comped our child's meal, which was really nice. But the thing is, BJ's has always comped food for customers who've had a bad experience. They have been doing this at least since the time I started with the company, which is about ten years ago. Why haven't they improved in that many years?

So, we have established the service to be a 4 out of 10, right? Now for the menu: BJ's has changed their menu a bit in the last several years. They've even changed the recipe for certain items, not for the better. Namely: the salsa. I think it's got some kind of chipotle or smoked spiciness to it now. I don't like it at all. It tastes like its from a jar. Something else that has changed is the tortilla chips. Their nachos used to be awesome but these newer chips they use are black, red and white and not as tasty as the original chips. They are even worse when they get burned in the salamander (where they melt the cheese).

You can tell by the menu that BJ's idolizes The Cheesecake Factory. They are trying to come up with more trendy dishes and present them in a classier style because a big hunk of withering kale just doesn't cut it anymore. I think they have good intentions with regards to the menu but before they can be that restaurant they should pay a lot more attention to the quality of service they are providing to customers who come to spend their very hard-earned money (more true than ever these days).