Archive for September, 2023
Alas, BJ’s – I Knew You, But I Don’t (and Won’t) Any More
by John Weckerle
The denizens of New Mexico Central have had some trying times of late, with one of our denizens experiencing some very serious medical issues. This has resulted to many hospital stays for one of us. During much of this, the others had a few “go-tos” in terms of dinner on the way home from the hospital, and one of them was the BJ’s restaurant at Winrock Center.
We had the very good fortune of no hospital stays for several months, but then one was necessary. We returned to BJ’s with some visiting relatives, as it turns out for the last time.
BJ’s has always had a multi-page, diverse menu with some great choices. Their vegetarian soups, appetizers, bowls, and especially the avocado egg roll alongside their meat and seafood options provided a variety that ensured everyone at the table would have a choice that would suit them. Unfortunately, those days are gone.
When we arrived, we were presented with the dreaded 11 x 17, laminated and folded-in-half menu that has become all too familiar. Gone are the vegetarian soups except for broccoli and cheese. Gone is the only non-meat flatbread, the Margarita Flatbread. Only one bowl remains. The avocado egg rolls are listed, but they were out of them. When I commented to the server that it was rather early to be out of them, he told me something interesting: as he related it, BJ’s only makes the egg rolls every two hours – and if they run out, they wait until the two hours are over and anyone who wants them before then is out of luck (great way to run a kitchen…). The server, who was not thrilled that a couple of his favorite items had been axed, ventured a guess that they had focused on the items that provided the greatest financial return. In all, the menu has been reduced to essentially pub grub.
We were tired and hungry, so we ordered. Two of us ordered the shrimp scampi at $22.45 – decent and plentiful, but the same item at Mario’s Pizzaria and Ristorante is a better value at $19.45, which includes soup or a salad (those are extra at BJ’s). I ordered a California Club Flatbread without bacon for the table, missing the fact that it has chicken on it. It’s listed as such on the menu, and the server assumed I was just avoiding bacon and not meat altogether – a little odd given our conversation about the missing vegetarian options, but in the end I take the blame. BJ’s let me have the blame, and I spent nearly $15 on an appetizer I couldn’t eat. I will say that the flatbread was not nearly as generously topped as that shown on the menu. A good portion of it went uneaten, even with four meat-eaters at the table. The Big Twist Pretzel was essentially flavorless, and most of it ended up in the trash.
Now, there will be those who will defend BJ’s and other restaurants on the grounds of supply chain issues, profitability, the purpose of simplifying the menu to make it easier to produce food, etc. To those people, and the restaurants themselves, I say this: I don’t care. Not one bit. I do not go out to a restaurant for the owners’ benefit. I go out to a restaurant to have an enjoyable experience. These vastly trimmed-down menus that have become all the rage do not, in general provide that experience, and I have voted with my feet many times in the past. When the now-defunct Standard Diner did so, removing several favorites, the denizens of New Mexico Central stopped eating there. When The Range and the Greenside Cafe in Cedar Crest followed this path, our visits went from weekly or biweekly to a very few times a year. When St. Clair Bistro (now D.H. Lescombes) removed key items from the menu, we removed it from our list of regularly visited restaurants. All the restaurants that were housed at the former location of Pete’s on Route 14 North (except for Pete’s itself) lost our business for the same or similar reasons (we haven’t tried Lantern Ridge yet). We’ve picked other, mostly locally owned substitutes (O’Neill’s, Flying Star, and Mario’s among others) who provide the food and service we value – and if they stop doing so, we’ll go searching for replacements again, regardless of how much we like the owners and the people who work there.
Loyalty is a two way street – when restaurant owners put their interests above those of their patrons, their patrons will respond in kind. We regret the loss of a favorite eatery, even as it continues to operate, but when we’re spending money for a dining experience, it needs to be money well spent, and the BJ’s experience no longer meets that criterion.