For Pepperdine students, a half-hour drive through the canyon to BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse on a Tuesday night has become tradition. A promotional deal for the California-originated chain’s signature Pizookie dessert, a large skillet-baked cookie topped with ice cream, is the main draw.
Beginning in 2014, BJ’s franchises offered “Free Pizookie Day” on select Tuesdays throughout the year. The promotion would eventually evolve into a weekly one, with the dessert costing $3 every Tuesday by 2017 — roughly half-off its usual price at the time, which ranged from $6.95 to $7.50. The offer was “a big hit” at the time, said Joe Joffino, general manager of the Westlake Village location.
Today, customers can order any Pizookie flavor for $5 on Tuesdays, according to the restaurant’s website. For many Pepperdine students, that promotion has turned into a regular off-campus activity.
“Everyone has to come at least once,” senior Diana Gordon said. “I mean, Malibu, everything closes so early, and then here everyone comes. You have to try it at least once before you graduate.”
The Westlake Village location is open until midnight daily.
“We met my sophomore year — so her junior year — so we’ve been coming together since then, and quite often,” Gordon said, referring to her friend Mackenzie Dawson, who graduated Pepperdine in April. “She just came to visit today, and we came straight here. We had to go to Pizookie night.”
Pizookie Tuesdays have become a self-perpetuating tradition for Pepperdine students, because part of the fun is the high level of attendance from fellow undergrads. Joffino said that Tuesday nights draw in lots of Pepperdine students, as well as students from Westlake High School and Thousand Oaks High School, which also neighbor the Westlake Village eatery.
“A lot of times you see a lot of Pepperdine students here, so it’s like a little reunion,” Gordon said. “You kind of know everybody when you come in here.”
Junior Alex Badoyan was also in attendance Aug. 27, alongside a small group of friends. He said he comes twice a month, and his usual order is the “Cookies and Cream” Pizookie.
“We’ll come here on Tuesdays with my friends from the Armenian Students Association,” Badoyan said. “We’ll get a big table and all just have Pizookies, and kind of just talk about stuff.”
Pepperdine’s Armenian Students Association listed BJ’s as a top “favorite restaurant” in a July post on Instagram.
BJ’s also offers a wide selection of appetizers and entrées — in fact, the chain originally started with a primary focus on deep-dish pizza, according to the restaurant’s website. So it follows that some students also order dinner at the restaurant before feasting on the main student attraction.
“Tonight we’re gonna get dinner, but that’s just, we happen to not have had dinner,” Dawson said. “But not usually.”
Whether students opt for a three-course meal or stick to just ordering Pizookies on a late-night trip to the restaurant, Pizookie Tuesday has cemented itself as an unofficial school-wide tradition among Pepperdine undergraduate students.
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Contact Henry Adams via email: henry.adams@pepperdine.edu
