BJ’s Restaurants continues to drift from its deep-dish pizza roots.
The Huntington Beach-based casual dining chain recently launched a fine-dining inspired line of slow roasted meats. The choices include prime rib, a double bone-in pork chop, pork ribs, a prime rib dip, hand-pulled turkey dip and a barbecue pulled pork sandwich.
Chief Executive Greg Trojan said BJ’s is using state-of-the-art ovens to slow roast its meats as long as eight hours each day.
“This is a category of items, large format proteins, that frankly isn’t done that well in casual dining. We saw that as an opportunity,” Trojan said.
Trojan said the company, which operates 192 restaurants in 24 states, has been testing various cooking methods for two years. Initially, the culinary team tried sous vide cooking, but the “hot water bath” method — commonly used in chef-driven white table cloth restaurants — wasn’t practical for such a large dining operation.
BJ’s instead went with high-end temperature controlled ovens that cook with precision. Trojan declined to offer specifics on the capital expenditure, only saying BJ’s spent “several million dollars” outfitting each restaurant with new ovens.
The move is reminiscent of a shift Applebee’s made last year to its menu to boost sales. The company, along with franchisees, invested more than $75 million installing American-made, wood-fired grills at 2,000 restaurants. The restaurants began grilling bone-in pork chops, salmon (over cedar wood) and chicken breast.
But, the investment didn’t move the needle on Applebee’s slumping sales. In 2016, Applebee’s reported a 5 percent decrease in domestic same-store sales, a key indicator of a restaurant’s financial health.
At BJ’s, the slow-roasted sandwiches range in price from $12.25 to $14.95. The prime rib (available Friday and Saturday after 4 p.m. and all day Sunday) is $26.95, while the pork chop (available daily after 4 p.m.) is $17.50. The latter two are well above the chain’s average per-customer check, which in 2016 was $14.50, according to the company’s annual report.
When asked if he’s worried about customer acceptance of the higher-priced, white-table cloth foods — in light of the Applebee’s situation — Trojan said he wasn’t concerned.
“We have had enough experience with center-of-the-plate protein items. I just never worried about our guest being excited about this,” he said.
Though it started off as a Chicago-style pizza joint in 1978, Trojan said BJ’s has spent many years diversifying its menu beyond pizza. In fact, one of the brand’s top sellers is salmon.
Adding slow roasted meats “isn’t a strategic departure for us,” said Trojan, CEO since 2013.
“We love our pizza and our guests do. It will always be an important part of what we do,” Trojan said.
However, to stay relevant in challenging times, BJ’s has looked beyond pizza to generate sales. Today, the 20-page spiral bound menu of pizza, pasta and seafood has reached 140 items. That’s about 100 fewer than Cheesecake Factory but double the amount at California Pizza Kitchen. The menu also includes the 6-year-old Enlightened menu, a line of good-for-you entrees showcasing superfoods such as quinoa.
Keeping diners in the door is crucial at a time when the industry is still recovering from the Great Recession.
Casual dining has been hit the hardest. For 2016, same-store sales at BJ’s declined 1.3 percent. The dip remained the same for the chain in the first quarter of 2017 ended April 4.
Still, BJ’s is faring better than its counterparts. Visits to casual dining restaurants fell by 4 percent for the first quarter, according to data released this month by market research The NPD Group in Chicago.
“Dinner traffic has also been challenged for several years now, and in the first quarter visits declined by 2 percent,” NPD said in its report.
Trojan said BJ’s is constantly looking at new ways to earn diner loyalty and frequency. Besides adding the new line of slow roasted meats, BJ’s is also rolling out handheld tablets for servers to take orders.
The devices, now in every Orange County restaurant, help improve customer service as they notify the kitchen instantaneously on ticket orders. The tablets should be in all restaurants by August.
Eventually, the tablets will allow diners to pay for their meal at the table — a move that helps turn tables.
While other casual chains like Coco’s, Carrows and El Torito are in contraction mode — shutting stores — BJ’s is still in growth mode.
Trojan said the chain plans to add 10 more restaurants outside California by the end of the year.
Diners can also expect a few new pizza flavors coming.
“One of the key drivers of the success of our concept is the combination of quality and value. That and the choice of our menu offers is (how) we keep it very relevant,” he said.
