CJ’s BBQ

Favorite BBQ here in Oxnard! Cool yet very laid back ambiance at the restaurant. Friendly and accommodating staff. (Food is great! Full chicken with french fries with a side of their special habanero sauce) burgers are also very fulfilling.

Absolutely horrible. The pulled pork had to be cut with a knife and no flavor and chewy. The tri-​tip was also very chewy with no smoke or BBQ flavor. The sides were nothing special. Red beans and rice tasted like chemicals. For the prices they charge you would think they would use a smoker or BBQ. There are much better places in Ventura and are much cheaper. Just BBQ and Dickies are the best in town.

I stopped by CJ’S for lunch, what a pleasant surprise! The food was delicious. I had the salmon salad with raspberry vinegarette dressing. The restaurant is superbly clean and the staff courteous. I live in LA… but the next time I headed North on the 101 freeway, I will make an intentional stop here for a meal. Loved it!!!

Came for lunch lots of greats items to chose from on the menu and great appetizers, it’s good to see a bbq place go the extra mile and carry a big variety of food, not just your typical bbq joint. Was really impressed with the attention to detail in the food and in the restaurant itself! Had the super special burger my faïence had the tri tip sand which and we shared the 3 combo appetizer with friend zucchini hush puppies and fried shrimp! Was snacking on the left overs 30 min later. Stop by and try for yourself!

I finally found a Awesome bbq place with a little soul… Greens, yams very good food

Everything was amazing! I will most definitely be back!!! Absolutely finger licking good!!!

I have been going to CJ’s for many years and I am so disappointed to see it only has 3.5 stars. I have always had delicious food and great service each and every time. I have tried many items from the ribs, chicken, salads, sandwiches, and almost every side.
I will say my go to items are the half pulled pork sandwich with fries or the beans. You cannot beat the price $ 7.99 which gets you a not only a darn big sandwich packed with meat and yummy sauce but you also get a side… where do you ever see the price with a side?!? The fries are also generous in size and seasoned deliciously. Oh and I’m not done yet… there’s still the cornbread and the sweet tea! The cornbread comes warm and sliced with yummy melted butter! It is sooooo good! You can ask for it to not be warm if you won’t eat it right away but for some reason I end up starting with it! And the sweet tea is perfectly sweetened and you can put it your own ice so it is not overly iced like other places.
If you haven’t tried this place do yourself a favor and I have not idea why the reviews are not off the charts. Maybe it’s because us locals don’t want to share:)
And the staff is always friendly and relatable… I also order ahead so when I get there that are always expecting me.
Support local businesses… enjoy!

So good. Great spicy BBQ sauce. Yummy fries. Great chicken. No complaints.

CJ’s is BBQ heaven. From the sweet smokey ribs to the hot link sandwich ~ delicious sides including greens and mac & cheese. I also love their sweet potato pie for dessert. The atmosphere is casual and the prices reasonable. This is the real thing.

Love this place! The staff is friendly. I always order the Philly cheese steak with BBQ beans. So yummy! I also had a lunch meeting and made a list of what everyone wanted and dropping it off the night before the meeting. They had everything ready by the time I can in. Also they even wrote everyone’s names on their meals. Priced right and delicious food! Highly recommend.

They employees were more interested in counting their tips than helping their customers. 3 of them were just standing by the counter discussing the distribution of their tips. Then when they finally turned around and took my order, another employee then said, oh did you know it’ll take 30 for my order.
Definitely not worth trying at this point.

The cjs in the montalvo center is so good! So far I’ve had ribs, pulled pork and Philly cheese steak with various sides (not all at once lol) and haven’t been disappointed by anything. The lemon something cake-​it looks like cornbread-​is amazing. Sad this place is close to my house I’m going to get fat

So I was in there today because somebody recommended the restaurant to me. Please note, I just moved to the area from Atlanta, so I kinda know what soul food is supposed to taste like lol (kinda=sarcasm). I had high hopes for this place since I really wanted some good bbq! The girls at the front counter were super nice and friendly. Unfortunately, I was really let down with the food. I ordered for my son and I the trip-​tip sandwich, collard greens, mac and cheese, baked beans, and some kind of bbq’d wings. The trip-​tip sandwich was lackluster in flavor. The bbq sauce they had the meat slathered in had no taste at all. The collard greens were meh. They had a lot of sugar in them like they were trying to be awesome… but just didn’t quite make it there. CJ’s gets 2 stars from me only because the baked beans were pretty good. They looked and tasted just like bush’s from the grocery store, which tastes pretty good to me, so it was cool. The mac and cheese (IDK why they call it this) was not mac and cheese… just mac. Yea… no cheese. The noodles were EXTRA dry and crusty with no cheese. Insane, right!!! Blasphemous lol. My son eats every kind of mac and cheese on the planet (the kid even likes Kraft out of the box), but he wouldn’t touch this stuff after his first bite. As much as I disliked it, I was still sure he would eat it; so when he didn’t, I knew it wasn’t just me. The wings were overcooked and so dry that you couldn’t even chew them unless you had pterodactyl teeth :-(The sauce on the wings was actually pretty tasty, so that was a let-​down. I almost forgot about the side of peach cobbler that I ordered… I’ll just leave it at that lol.
In summation, If you’ve never had real soul food or southern food before, check them out for their friendly staff and I’m sure you won’t even realize what you’ve been missing.

If you haven’t tried their location on Victoria, you’ll soon have a second location to be able to try. The food is great. The meat is perfectly tender. Mac & cheese wonderfully flavored even the butter for the cornbread is great. Oh and don’t get me started on the fries… Saweeeeet Jesus, they’re good!

This is good Bar-​b-​Q!
Good food, great service and reasonably priced. I lo ve this for take out and have had large party orders from CJ’s with rave reviews from my family and friends. This is not a fancy eat-​in place but they do have seating and a big flat-​screen for viewing sports, plenty of free parking and its clean. Yes they have Sweet potato Pie, Love the Ribs (both kinds) BBQ beans and potatoes salad. yams are good but sweet for my taste. the fired catfish was a pleasant surprise. crunchy breading and cut in bigger than bite size pieces for easy sharing. Smoker in the back parking lot.

Yay! I finally found somewhere great to eat in this part of Oxnard. This area of town is pretty much just fast food and Denny’s and IHOP. I’ve always struggled to find great food when I work over here. So when i found CJ’s BBQ I was very happy. Friendly staff, easy parking and some really good food! I’ve only been here twice but both times I’ve loved my food. Great bbq flavor and delicious sides. This will be my new lunch spot whenever Im in Oxnard.

NOTE 1: I posted this review to the listing for the Ventura location in the Montalvo Square shopping center, but somehow it got merged into this listing. Silly.
NOTE 2: CJ’s hasn’t opened yet, but I wanted to add this business so any more information that becomes available has a place to go. I will update my review and star rating as soon I have a chance to try it.
CJ’s is located in the former location of Daphne’s Greek Food and subsequently Gandolfo’s New York Deli (which seemingly closed as soon as it opened). Hopefully CJ’s fares better than these two spots! They are affiliated with the CJ’s BBQ in Oxnard (also on Victoria), so I am assuming the menu and quality will be the same or similar.
5 (place holder/​tentative/​optimistic) stars as this is a great local shopping center and Ventura still needs more BBQ spots, especially if they are good.

Had the three meat combo! Baby backs, tri tip, and hot links! They are so delicious.
Coleslaw and chili beans are great to!
Clean and great service.

This place gets 4 stars from me on the basis that they hooked my office up with some great BBQ during once of our office parties.
I was in charge of picking the place to cater our party and I opt’d for CJ’s based on a prior dining experience. After I called the restaurant and left a message with one of the employees, the owner called me back and patiently went through the catering menu with me, he was very helpful, asked about my office, how many co-​workers I had and if anyone had any requests.
He was able to feed 36 women and have food left over, from baked bean, ribs, chicken, tri-​tip, potato salad, green salad, garlic bread, we had so much food it was amazing and he quoted me a very reasonable price.
The food was delivered and set up for us by the Owner himself, which I thought was a great touch and we were asked if we needed anything else.
All in all our office was pretty happy with the food we had, the meats were tender and seasoned just right, the baked beans were smokey with a hint of bacon, truly a fabulous meal and great customer service, wouldn’t hesitate to do business with CJ’s again.

Yum!
This southern bbq is delicious!
I got the tri tip sandwich & can only eat half of it, but I’m saving the rest for later!