10840 W Charleston Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89135
(702) 853-2300
http://www.bjsrestaurants.com/
Although I’ve been loosely curious about the pizza here I wasn’t really ever expecting to find outstanding pizza in a chain place like this. It’s a typical family restaurant like Chili’s or Cheesecake factory with the angle that it’s a brewhouse, so it has kind of a bar/sports bar feel while still being family oriented. The crowd runs the gamut as you see families with kids here, people on dates, and co-workers getting a drink after work.
BJ’s originated in California and has grown to 108 locations as of 2011 and as such has the corporate systematization you’d expect from this type of operation. The kind of pizza they do here is deep dish. I order a medium “BJ’s Favorite” pizza which comes with meatballs, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, black olives, white onions and seasoned tomatoes. They’re advertising whole wheat crust so I figured I’d give it a whirl. The pizza comes out in a deep dish pan and they put it on an elevated pedestal as pizza restaurants are wont to do.
The crust is buttery and the edges are dark brown as the grease has carmelized with the bread. The pizza is thick and mostly what makes it thick is the crust. The crust is like a light spongy bread. Height-wise it’s about a 50/50 split with crust and toppings. The pizza is good, not amazing. It tastes about like what you’d expect if you made pizza at home a loaded a bunch of ingredients on to it (assuming you can make ok pizza). I wouldn’t go out of my way to get pizza here again. Not best pizza in Vegas quality. It’s sort of been there done that. I guess to be fair I should try it without the whole wheat crust sometime so I might give it one more shot, although, when describing the whole wheat crust, our waiter said he couldn’t really tell much of a difference between the regular white crust and the whole wheat.
If you want deep dish in Vegas try Amore Taste of Chicago.