For over a year now…..the family has had a tradition of meeting every month for Happy Hour. This month…it was brother Robert’s turn to choose the location and he selected “Johnny Reb’s” in his new stomping grounds of old town Bellflower. So me and Pops braved the #5 north and #91 West and after battling traffic…found ourselves exiting at Bellflower Blvd. Once we were off the freeway….we were immediately transported back to the late 1950’s. Bellflower Boulevard features old single story store fronts that could have been featured on Happy Days or American Graffiti. Kinda cool.
Johnny Reb’s is located in Downtown Bellflower which is currently going through it’s own revitalization. Johnny’s has plenty of parking in the back but be warned…it shares the lot with a Sheriff’s sub station. My first impression of the place after going through the front door was it used to be a pancake house. We spotted the door to the bar area and hurried over before we were handed a short stack.
The bar area appeared to have been remodeled as it was completely different from the dining area. It looked out over Bellflower Boulevard and featured an outdoor section which had been tented in….but not well enough to keep out the chill. We were greeted quickly…put our drink orders in and were provided with happy hour menus. Now the fun starts.
My brother quickly realized that the happy hour menu was far different from what was featured on their website. The web listed 13 different items ranging from $8 – $5 in price. What we were given had about half the selection and all at $5 an item (except $8 pizzas)! Understand….we’re very serious about our Happy Hour selections and we all do research on-line before making a final selection. It had the feeling of a “Bait & Switch” but we had drinks in hand so we started to peruse the $5 menu.
We started with two orders of chicken wings (8 total), one hot and the other BBQ. In addition, we got two orders of sliders, one beef and the other pulled pork. These seemed like naturals to go with our $3.00 domestic draft beers. The hot wings were pretty good and seemed to follow the traditional sauce recipe. They were hot enough to make you reach for your beer but not enough to mop your brow. Both of the sliders we ordered offered ample meat and the winner here was the pulled pork which was juicier than the BBQ beef.
Considering this served as our dinner….we weren’t finished yet! To go with another round of drafts…we ordered one of the $8 pizzas. About eight minutes later, the Cajun Sausage Pizza arrived at our table. It was a personal size cut into six slices and featured sliced Cajun sausage, the holy trinity, generous fresh mozzarella and a light white Cajun sauce. We all agreed this was the best selection of the night (even if the crust wasn’t as crisp as we would have liked).
Overall..we gave Johnny Reb’s three stars out of five. They lost some points because of the “Bait & Switch” menus but got points for their $3 draft beers and pizza. Two people could easily enjoy a couple of domestic draft beers and two happy hour pizzas and get out for around $30. Not a bad value.
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