BJ's Addison

[Jimmy Orkin]

We had some problems at the last club meeting at BJ's in Addison. I wrote a letter and mailed it to both the local BJ's and their corporate office in Califonia. I have not heard anything back yet. I am posting the content of the letter here to keep you informed.

March 12, 2009

Mr. Kyle Johnson
BJ’s Restaurant
4901 Belt Line Road
Addison, TX 75254

Dear Mr. Johnson

I am writing to give you feedback on our experiences at BJ’s Restaurant on Tuesday March 10. As you know, our expectation was to be seated in the private west room of your restaurant. We did mange to get everyone seated in the bar area because we had a light turnout of 39 members.

I apologize if our PA system bothered any of your other patrons. We had to turn it rather loud to be heard over the house music in the bar. The PA system is not a problem when we use the west room of your restaurant.

The North Texas Homebrewers Association has met at your location many times in the past and has always been pleased with the results. This was not the case on Tuesday.

If you remember, we started discussions on having our meeting at BJ’s at the beginning of January when we were looking for a place for our February meeting. We made a reservation for February 10. Approximately a week later you contacted me and explained that you had a conflict for the west room and offered to host us in the bar area. One of the reasons we have club meetings at BJ’s is the private room you have to offer. The bar area is not desirable for us.

I arranged for the NTHBA to meet at an alternative location for our February meeting. We then spoke of meeting at BJ’s for our March meeting. Our expectation was to use your private room for our meeting. I did call on Monday March 9 to confirm our reservation. I gave you the member count of 35 to 40 persons. You told me everything was ready. You also called me on Tuesday afternoon to check the headcount again and I told you that we would have 35 to 40 attendees. You said we would not be in the private room but could use the bar area.

Several member of our club were very dissatisfied with the accommodations for our meeting Tuesday.

We had only a single server taking our orders. He did an admirable job but was overwhelmed by our numbers. There was some problem with the bill at one table at the end of the evening. I do not know the details but the issues seemed to get resolved with some hard feelings by those at the table.

The NTHBA does have several choices for restaurants to hold our monthly meetings. In the past we have visited BJ’s in Addison due to your heritage of being a brewpub. We have always been impressed with the quality of your service, facilities, beer and food.

Before the NTHBA will return to BJ’s for a club meeting we need some way to make a reservation that guarantees us the use of the private west room and that we will have sufficient servers to handle our group size.

I want to thank you for reading this letter.

Sincerely,



Jimmy Orkin
President, North Texas Homebrewers Association

[BrotherhoodBrew]

I have to agree with everything in the above letter. I feel like the service and seating was not good enough and we've had much better service in the past. Just wanted to put my thoughts in also.