A recent review of claim jumpers restaurant in monrovia,ca;it just gets worse every day!

I will start posting the claim jumper reviews here several times a month,most reviews will be from YELP,THESE REVIEWS ARE NOT RECOMMENDED BY YELP,SO THEY ARE NOT LISTED ON YELPS MAIN PAGE!

************************************************************************************************************************************************************ It had been over a year since I had been to Claim Jumper when we decided to celebrate my seven year old son's birthday there. It was a big disappointment. Apparently, the restaurant has been purchased by a chain which has managed to work their accounting magic to make the visit anything but magical. ***************************************************************************************************************** First of all, they remodeled the place and now it is on par with every other bland restaurant chain in the world. It used to be meticulously decorated in old-west mining style. There were high booths, with beveled glass between the booths that gave a unique sense of privacy, which have now been replaced by regular old boring booths. Ceiling fans, once connected by old leather straps, have been replaced by grossly over-sized "paper lanterns". The huge bull head mounted in the reception area, along with the other mounts and virtually all other mining paraphernalia, has disappeared. The old Claim Jumper is gone, replaced by a cheap imitation. It has been stripped down to what I would now say is approaching a very nice Denny's that splurged on a fancy stone fireplace. ******************************************************************************************************** The food was not what it used to be. Portion sizes have been reduced. The quality is what you would expect in a chain restaurant that is struggling financially. The meal started with salads, all of which had the minimum amount of dressing possible to wet the lettuce. We had to ask for ketchup three times to get enough for my two kid's fries. Their macaroni and cheese was tasteless and the sauce was watery. My daughter's kids-ribs were over cooked and had hardly any meat. I had the porterhouse steak, which was quite good. But I had been wanting the prime-rib and hoped they served it on a Tuesday night, only to find out they no longer sell prime rib! At least I was lucky enough to win the lottery and get the only steak-knife at the table. My mom ordered the filet and lobster. I had a bite of the lobster and it was dry. My brother-in-law ordered a steak which was way over-cooked. For desert we ordered the famous 6-layer Motherload Cake. Well, it is no longer famous. It was once so rich, and the cake filled with so many chocolate chips, that you could hardly eat more than one layer. Now, it is just a mass-produced chocolate cake with a thick frosting. Oh,and since it was my son's seventh birthday, he got the free red-velvet cupcake with a candle. It speaks volumes when he doesn't finish a cupcake! ******************************************************************************** The one good point (which is why the restaurant gets two stars) is that the waiter was very good. I'm sure this was partly due to the fact that the place wasn't crowded at all (now I know why). The waiter made good eye contact and checked on us often, constantly keeping our drinks filled. Our food was brought by someone else who didn't know who got what. I don't think that would have ever happened at the "old" Claim Jumper. BTW, the kid's food was brought last and they were driving us nuts by the time their food arrived. To top it off, they messed up my daughter's order. ********************************************************************************************************************* At the end of dinner we got one additional surprise. A big sales pitch for "Landry's Select Club"... or something like that. You pay $25 now and then when you sign up online you get a $25 reward back. It is good at most Landry's chain restaurants. They also give a $25 discount on your birthday. You get one point for every dollar you spend and when you get 250 points you get another $25 reward. Well, besides the fact that it was incredibly annoying to get hit up for a glorified 10% discount/birthday club (Hello, Denny's!) at what we considered a nice restaurant, we decided that Claim Jumper, and any Landry's chain restaurant, probably wasn't going to be our first choice for future dining experiences. The offer felt like a last-ditch effort to squeeze a few more bucks out of patrons who won't be returning anytime soon. ******************************************************************* Overall, it was a big letdown and the end of an era of classic Claim Jumper dining. Metaphorically, you can say that someone finally "jumped the claim" and stole the gold. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************ FOR COMPLETE REVIEW GO TO:

http://www.yelp.com/not_recommended_reviews/claim-jumper-monrovia?not_recommended_start=10