🍕🍺📚 BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse: Finding the Gimmick (It Was Beer) 📚🍺🍕

This week kicks off Part 1 of our BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse coverage with a full Eat Deets history episode, joined by PJ McCormick (@peejmccormick). We trace BJ's unlikely evolution from a Chicago-style pizza experiment to a beer-forward empire, debate whether pizza was ever really their best foot forward, and draw a completely reasonable comparison between BJ's brand identity journey and Stone Cold Steve Austin ditching the Ringmaster gimmick. Also yes: blowjob jokes.

🍕 "BJ Grunt's" Got a Cease-and-Desist 🍺 Explaining the Real Gimmick via Stone Cold Steve Austin 📈 From Pizza Joint to National Restaurant & Brewhouse Chain 🍪 The Birth of the Pizookie and How It Stole the Whole Show 🎤 PJ Pitches His Dream Restaurant: A Pho Spot Where You're Immortalized for Not Coughing ⭐ Yelp From Strangers Includes a "Fat and Ugly" Man Mad His Hot Waiter Wouldn't Hustle for the Tip

💬 COMMENT BELOW: Is BJ's a pizza place, a brewery, or just a Pizookie delivery system?

📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, extended Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/channel/UCLbraNhL6KhDPkdSWt2yiuw 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Guest: PJ McCormick | IG: @peejmccormick

Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van Patreon Subscribers: David Ornelas, Kellie Baldwin, Jeremy Horwitz, Herbert Amaya, Simone Davalos, Scott Bennett, Amy Reinhart, Josef Castaneda-Liles, & Travis Langley Free Patreon Followers: Joe Warszalek, Lauren Cummings, Grace Krainak, Keri Estes, Robert Duran, Patrick Elliott, Michelle Elmer, Dave Plummer, Nicholas Volney, Michael Gerard, Tracy Molino, Phuong Duong, Tyler Robinson, Brandon Gully, Mason Cruz, Michael Milito, Mez, Aaron Hubbard, Steff, Robert McLaughlin, & Jewell Hermann

👉 NEXT WEEK: Part 2 as we actually eat BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse and find out if the pizza, the wings, or the Pizookie can beat Chili's.