Earlier this month a woman found a dead frog in her salad when she was eating at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse in West Covina, California. She posted her review on Yelp explaining that she was about four bites into the salad when she noticed it tasted rather bitter. After stirring her salad around a bit thinking that maybe it was the Ranch dressing that was offending her taste buds, she discovered the limp amphibian. The manager of the restaurant comped the food at the table but still made the woman, Shawna C., pay for the three beers on the check. Well, you know, there were no frogs in the beers, so why not? Had there been some tadpoles swimming around in her Amstel Light, then sure. BJ’s corporate office reached out to Shawna and offered her a $50 gift card for her traumatic experience. Shawna felt the $50 gift card was a joke and claimed on 6/22 that she still felt sick and had not been able to eat since the incident on 6/14 meaning that she did not eat for eight whole days. uh huh. Sure, right.
As disturbing as this is, no one is talking about the dead frog. I did some research and found out that the frog was named Albee and was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Albert E. Wog, a pair of Pacific Coast tree frogs who have been married for six years. The mother of the deceased frog, Polly, was extremely upset by the whole situation.
“Oh, my god, I just can’t believe this has happened. Albee went missing in early June and I have been out of my mind. I took him and his sister Jane out to play and they were on a log in Farmer Ted’s garden. I turned my head for one second to catch a fly and the next thing I knew, Albee was gone. We ribbited for hours trying to find him but we never did. We filed a missing frog report and hung flyers all over the bog, but nothing. And the next thing I knew, they found his body in a salad! I just don’t know what happened. Albee was so curious and the sweetest little frog you’d ever seen. His sister is just a mess and won’t leave the house. She thinks she’s gonna end up in a salad too someday. It’s really just an awful flashback for me, because many years ago, I had a brother whose legs ended up in a French restaurant as an appetizer. The worst thing is they didn’t even send Albee back to us. They splashed his photo all over the Internet and then just tossed my baby into the garbage. This woman Shawna has no respect for me or other mothers and that she scoffed at a $50 gift card hurts my very soul. Maybe if she would have seen my flyer, she would have rather taken the $75 we were offering as a reward. We are considering legal action as my cousin is Kermit the Frog and he is helping us with an attorney. To all the other frog mothers out there, I say this: go hug your little tadpoles right now because you never know when they might end up drowning in Ranch dressing.”
Shawna, I hope you have gotten over your bad dining experience, but can we all take moment to think of Albert and Polly Wog who no longer have their son? Rest in peace, Albee Wog.
Read Shawna C.‘s review of BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse on Yelp
Karen
“Shawna felt the $50 gift card was a joke and claimed on 6/22 that she still felt sick and had not been able to eat since the incident on 6/14 meaning that she did not eat for eight whole days.”
Shawna sounds like an ungracious drama queen–professional victim. Nothing would have made it right nor would it be enough. Yelp seems to exist only for professional whiners. There are far more productive and better ways to get an appropriate response.
Loved your story about poor little missing Albee.
Catherine
Yea, I’m on her side. What was this manager thinking? In this case just comp the whole damn check. Is the price of 3 beers worth the cost of all this negative publicity? At my place they comp the whole check A to Z if a live roach runs on the table. A dead frog though, that has to be worth a lot more. Ugh, yuck, eew
Hercule
Unlike the other bad reviews, this is pretty well deserved. How do you toss a salad and not see a fairly large frog? Quite gross and certainly unworthy of a greasy truck stop diner, and if this restaurant was more elegant than that, it is worse. Even the cricket story above is more reasonable, since it is much smaller and could be mistaken for something else.
Willow
WOW, just WOW! I fully blame the kitchen staff on this one. I just don’t see how that even get by them. Makes no sense.
Stephanie
Yeah… Bitchy, I love you, but in this case, I’d want my whole meal comped, but several more drinks as well to wash away the taste and numb my mind from this horror. Customers do and will try and whine about anything for a scam discount, but this looks to be too real to be true, especially if the manager was truly so blasé about it.
Yes, in some cases frogs are edible and considered delicacies, but I guarantee people cooking up frogs at high-end restaurants (for people who WANT to eat them) aren’t sourcing them from inconsistently refrigerated detritus pickings at the bottom of bagged greens. This is a pretty significant oversight, and should have been treated as such.
Honestly, if it happened to me, but I’d been treated seriously, with concern, and comped, I would have appreciated that and not left any review at all. In this case, (assuming it’s true) it’s a genuinely deserved 1-star.
Elisabeth
For whatever reason, I would have been okay if the frog was alive and just hopped out. I once served a woman a completely ALIVE giant grasshopper in her Maine Lobster Salad, it was made with butter lettuce and washed, the grasshopper hung out and came out in the middle of lunch. She seemed to find it humorous, but we obviously comped her entire bill, offered to pay for her entire return trip, and made her a brand new dish. It’s still a day I have nightmares about, and this was probably 17 years ago.
The fact that the frog was dead freaks me out, germ wise. It’s pretty terrible.
You can absolutely comp anything you want off a check, (at least in San Diego, I’ve waited tables here for 22 years), I comped some drinks today for regulars that spend a lot of money. If you can’t do it personally, tell the manager. I’m sure their manager is wishing he comped their entire bill. Maybe he could have avoided the Yelp review and bad press.
Anonymous
Yeeeaaahhh I’m on her side with this one. For something like that, the whole bill should have been comped. A bug is one thing, but a fucking frog? Fuck that. I’ve had managers comp whole tables for less.
Kristen
This is hilarious to me because I work at a BJs in south Florida so anytime a customer is pissed, I’m elated hehehe
angie
I would f*cking PUKE.
Susan
This is surprising to me. I worked at BJ’s for many years and their standards are very high.
In Calif alcohol cannot be comped. Just the way the law is.
Donna @ What the Dog Ate
I’m siding with Shawna on this one. Just seeing the picture of the ranch dressing covered frog is making me a little queasy.
Sandra
Poor Frog 🙁