Claim Jumper sold again?

Alpha8472
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by Alpha8472 »

Claim Jumper is a tarnished brand. They used to have large portions and great food. Now they are giving out stingy portions and mediocre food. Conagra decided that it is not worth it to pay to use the Claim Jumper name on the pies. The Claim Jumper brand is as good as worthless.

The local Claim Jumper near me in Concord, California also recently closed. The restaurant used to be very popular with people lined up for hours just to get into the restaurant. These past few years have been dismal for business. The past few months just hastened the restaurant's demise. I tried a Marie Callender's pie a short time ago when it went on clearance. Those things simply do not sell very well. The pie was nothing special and was honestly very bland. I will not buy it again.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 1st, 2020, 11:24 pm Claim Jumper is a tarnished brand. They used to have large portions and great food. Now they are giving out stingy portions and mediocre food. Conagra decided that it is not worth it to pay to use the Claim Jumper name on the pies. The Claim Jumper brand is as good as worthless.

The local Claim Jumper near me in Concord, California also recently closed. The restaurant used to be very popular with people lined up for hours just to get into the restaurant. These past few years have been dismal for business. The past few months just hastened the restaurant's demise. I tried a Marie Callender's pie a short time ago when it went on clearance. Those things simply do not sell very well. The pie was nothing special and was honestly very bland. I will not buy it again.
I suspect fewer tourists and fewer people shopping also hurt the Concord Claim Jumper. I am a little surprised the Reno Claim Jumper has survived longer than that Concord one as that Concord one was definitely a much busier location in the past. Reno is in a little bit of a hangover right now- people from CA are literally pouring in here every weekend since most businesses here are open. Casinos are packed crazy, business is as good or better than it was before COVID. It is amazing. Not sure it will last but probably helping some businesses bridge through this difficult time that would otherwise have gone under here.

Are there still Claim Jumper frozen meals? I haven't seen those lately. I wonder if those were the same food as a Marie Callendar frozen meal in a different package too like the pie.

Also some of the Marie Callendar Fruit Pies are not bad but you have to deal with baking them, cooling them, etc. The switchover of Claim Jumper items was just a SKU change; some stores just did a clean SKU swap selling through the CJ product at regular price and restocking with MC product, while others like Raleys clearanced the Claim Jumper Pies at 50% off (since Raleys price was over $9 each, that brought the pies down to about the 4.97 that Wal Mart sells them for everyday). I bought a frozen pie at Wal Mart called a Great Value Lemon Blueberry Crunch Pie (it was on clearance). I was very reluctant to buy this item. I have little confidence in the Great Value brand. The ingredient list was surprisingly clean. I took a chance for the $3 or whatever it was, and baked it up. Let it sit out overnight and tried the next morning. It was excellent; I was very surprised. Too bad it was discontinued but I suspect many potential customers also had no confidence in that brand.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by Alpha8472 »

San Jose, California card rooms are about to open up only for outdoor gambling. Indoor gambling is still not allowed. The Indian Casinos are open. I guess Californians just don't like their local casinos if they are traveling to Nevada.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by storewanderer »

Was dragged into going out to eat. Took a while for me to come up with somewhere that wouldn't be crowded and realized this would be just the place.

There was some traffic but it was nowhere near even 50% capacity (perfect). This is a very big restaurant, probably 15,000 square feet. It was staffed well enough, for the traffic they had. Looked like kitchen was pretty short staffed but somehow orders were coming out pretty quickly.

The Claim Jumper menu is now a single page front and back. Still a good variety of food but does not look like before. They have a small sub menu/seasonal menu that featured "Prime Steaks" for like $45 that you have to add side items to for extra cost; the steak is reportedly cooked at 1800 degrees F or something, not sure how that works. On the regular menu they still have other steaks with 2 sides included.

The order taking is now via a handheld tablet at the table, this is done by the server; the server comes over with and takes the order. The tablet is not left at the table. When you pay they still take your card away for payment. They seem to be trying to sell a new loyalty card called the CJ Select Club which looks suspiciously similar to the Landry's Select Club but isn't the Landry's Select Club. Landry's still gets 10% off though it was vague if this was still the policy or they made an exception.

Employees were really good and the food was all fine (not excellent). Food presentation was really lacking. $40 steak sits on the white industrial plate brought out with a sea of visible butter on top and the side items piled next to it; no garnish or anything. This was presented in line with how I would plate up food at home (this is not a compliment and not really acceptable for this price point, might be passable at a Denny's).
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by storewanderer »

Reno Claim Jumper has closed as of now. One of those no notice closures... as is typical for restaurants.

Too bad.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by Alpha8472 »

The Claim Jumper's in Concord, California closed years ago and has sat empty. It is an eyesore, but Chick-fil-a recently took it. They will build a new restaurant at this location.

Perhaps someone bought the Reno location?
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 13th, 2022, 5:20 pm The Claim Jumper's in Concord, California closed years ago and has sat empty. It is an eyesore, but Chick-fil-a recently took it. They will build a new restaurant at this location.

Perhaps someone bought the Reno location?
Building appears to be owned by the shopping center that surrounds it. I see it was built in 2000, that sounds about right. This was quite a place when it opened. Ran at capacity with a wait list for many years. Even as the chain went through financial problems this location was very, very busy and it ran so well. Even through the Landry's ownership and their menu cut/portion cut, this was busy but no longer had a wait list (still was not unusual to see it at 75%+ capacity at night). When it was taken over by Kelly Group along with other Claim Jumpers not in casinos business started to fall off and kept falling off; prices increased, the menu got even smaller, they got rid of the 75% of the great happy hour Landry's offered, my perception is food quality decreased, and the vibe in the place started to fall off. The COVID closure was the final blow and I was surprised this place reopened after that; it was not hitting much over 50% capacity ever.

This is such a large building I am not sure who else can take a 15k square foot restaurant. If someone else takes it I am expecting it will be demolished.

Once they shut the thing down, they got a U-Haul and started to remove some systems/equipment from the inside. It will be interesting to see if they do an auction here.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by J-Man »

The one in Monrovia, CA closed a while back; it's being demolished and replaced by a Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by lake52 »

The Roseville location closed this past week. The restaurant used to be a madhouse, hour plus wait nightly. As previously stated, as the chain went downhill so did the traffic at this location.

I’d think this restaurant will sit empty for some time, there are numerous restaurant vacancies in better locations around this area such as the Tahoe Joe’s location and the rumored closing Mimi’s. Also, it is a huge restaurant, would be expensive to operate.
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Re: Claim Jumper sold again?

Post by Alpha8472 »

Claim Jumper's was so busy in its prime days. Around 2006, people would wait for hours just to get a table. Portions were huge and people loved going there. Now people just don't seem to like sit down full service restaurants. Younger people like the fast casual places or even those trendy vegetarian places.

You can take selfies and post to social media.

Meat and high fat foods seem to be seen as old people food. You don't want to post selfies at a restaurant with dead animal heads on the walls.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on January 3rd, 2023, 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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