BJ's Restaurants Names New Chairman and Lead Independent Director

Food & Beverage Close-Up, June 8, 2009

FOOD AND BEVERAGE CLOSE-UP-8 June 2009-BJ's Restaurants Names New Chairman and Lead Independent Director(C)2008 - CloseUpMedia - newsdesk@closeupmedia.com

BJ s Restaurants announced that it held its annual meeting of shareholders on Wednesday, June 4.

Shareholders re-elected Paul A. Motenko, Jeremiah J. Hennessy, Gerald W. Deitchle, Peter A. Bassi, Larry D. Bouts, Shann M. Brassfield, James A. Dal Pozzo, J. Roger King and John F. Grundhofer to the Board of Directors to serve for one-year terms until the next annual meeting. Additionally, shareholders also ratified the selection of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the Company s independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2008.

The Company also announced that the board of directors has unanimously elected Gerald W. Deitchle, President and CEO, to the additional post of Chairman of the Board, and Peter A. Bassi as the board s lead independent director. I am very grateful that Paul Motenko and Jerry Hennessy, our co-founders and former co-chairmen, will be continuing their valuable service and support to BJ s as members of our board, commented Deitchle.

At the annual shareholders meeting, BJ s leadership team presented an update of the Company s strategic business and growth plan. The slide presentation can be viewed on the Investors page of the Company s website located at bjsrestaurants.com.

We remain highly confident about BJ s opportunity to continue executing its longer-term growth plan and thereby gain additional market share in the estimated $90 billion casual dining segment of the restaurant industry, said Deitchle. With only 71 restaurants open today, we believe that we are only about a fourth of the way to opening our current estimate of approximately 300 domestic restaurants of various site types and sizes. While the current operating environment remains very difficult for casual dining restaurants in general, we believe the BJ s restaurant concept is well positioned with greater quality, differentiation and value compared to most of our mass market casual dining competitors and offers us a good opportunity to outperform our similarly-situated peers during these challenging times.

BJ's Restaurants currently owns and operates 71 casual dining restaurants under the BJ's Restaurant & Brewery, BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse or BJ's Pizza & Grill brand names.

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