Have you ever ate something so bad that you wanted to scrape your tongue and scour your mouth with bleach. Well, I did. Now I love to try new places, so when I had to go to Fresno for lab work, and didn't eat all morning I was starving. Now my standards are lower when I haven't eaten for a while, so I am afraid.
We were driving down blackstone when dad and I saw this very old looking restaurant called BJ's Country Kitchen, their sign highlighted biscuits and gravy so we pulled in to try it. The parking lot was empty, and though that should have been a warning sign, I ignored it. My new phone has internet, so I looked it up, and all the reviews gave great ratings, 30 people and more gave it 4-5 stars out of 5. So I figured it was a diamond in the rough.
When I walked in I was immediately met with this weird smell, kinda like dead skin meets must.... (no fluff here folks this was the real smell) Now you would have thought that I would have run away, but no, I was sucked into this vortex, because hunger takes over and depletes my brain cells. The place matched the outside very old and weirdly decorated, with ugly green vinyl seats. Oddly there were people there, but I soon realized they were employees and family members hanging out... not eating! (I should have been really scared) *note the falling down tile, another sign from God, that I ignored.
The waitress, who was super nice, seated us. We got coffee, which was good! Fast forward too food. After all the forces of good trying to prevent me from certain death, I decided to... no, not leave, but order something "safe" like an ortega burger, surely thank can't screw up meat and cheese! Instead of fries I thought I would try their potato salad, the waitress told me it was homemade (are we sensing the pattern of my inadvertent suicide)
When I got my food, which was not slow, but I expected that since their were no customers but us. It looked all right, so I dug in. I opened the burger and notice there was no mayo or mustard like the menu said, when I asked she walked off presumedly to get me a little bowl of mayo, instead she brought back packets..... PACKETS, because they only use packets! The potato salad had an odd flavor and smell to it, I told myself they used too much vinegar and that it was not spoiled from sitting out too long, after all it was already in my body.
I started eating the hamburger and well you guessed it, yuck! It is meat and cheese and they managed to ruin it....
I mean I eat liver for pete's sake and I still thought this was gross! I also discovered a little gift with my burger, which for me was particularly awesome...
Now through this all the waitress, was very nice, so for that reason I did leave a tip, not a great one though, I think she should have warned me or something. At this point I wanted to get out, which meant if I had to pay for this that was okay, I did not want to take any extra time. The back of the check there was a comment section and so I filled it out, cause obviously they had no idea.
I wasn't going to say anything but the cashier did ask me, so I quickly let her know about my experience there... ironically she only seemed upset about the bread bag tie that came with my burger, and not anything else.
So this was my experience at BJ's, my only thought is that there must be another one in Fresno that everyone is talking about because I did not share their views on the place.
So good luck and good eating!