The picture accompanying this blog is not a picture of food, but it is relevant to this restaurant website and to people who dine out in Waco nonetheless.
The picture shows a backhoe doing work near Richland Mall at the location where an office building formerly stood. It's also the location where a BJ's Brewhouse will soon begin to take shape.
A couple of months ago, having heard rumblings that a BJ's Brewhouse was coming to town, I stopped into the BJ's Brewhouse in Temple to find out whatever I could find out. The manager there told me at the time that the restaurant had picked out a location near Richland Mall and was working out the details to begin construction. One of those details was removing the office building that at the time existed on that piece of ground.
So I would say BJ's Brewhouse is significantly closer to serving its wide variety of food and beer here in Waco. My guess is mid-March.
JJ's opens its doors in Hewitt
If you live or work in Hewitt or Woodway, there's now a Jimmy John's in your neighborhood, which might mean that you can have a sandwich delivered to your doorstep or desk.
I happened by Jimmy John's on Monday afternoon as they were putting the finishing touches on the Hewitt location before opening on Tuesday. Part of that process included someone from Jimmy John's central office determining the delivery area. I learned that a driver essentially runs the routes to establish the five-minute reach of JJ's drivers, and the clock rules. Apparently, it doesn't matter if there's a huge subdivision that could be served if the time limit were extended to six minutes. In order to promise fast delivery, JJ's has to adhere to the clock.
So you might have to go to the actual store, but that's ok. When I wrote about this JJ's last week, readers raised concerns about the smallish parking lot in the shopping center adjacent to the Hewitt Wal-Mart. However, JJ's manager Larry Wright pointed out that there's much more parking available at the Hewitt location than the downtown JJ's and parking hasn't been a problem there. He also said the lot has recently been re-striped to reduce congestion.
One more bite: I know everyone is going to go shopping on Black Friday next week. This is something about the universe I don't understand. But it's fine. I'll go to a high school football game and let everyone who wants to shop descend on the mall or Wal-Mart or wherever. But as an alternative, let me recommend dining at Cafe Homestead and taking in the Homestead Fair, which is set for November 25-27 at the Homestead Heritage farm.
