Children frequently gravitate toward restaurants for all the wrong reasons. With McDonald’s, it’s a brightly-colored fantasyland clown, the promise of a rad toy and a barrage of ads during Saturday morning network programming. With Chuck E. Cheese’s it’s the arcade, the redemption games and maybe some animatronics.

When I was of an easily impressionable age, I always wanted to eat at the Pizza Palace in north Seaside. My imagination ran wild. Whether it was the luxurious promise of visiting a “palace,” the fact that pizza (perhaps the most kid-friendly food) was inside, or the castle-like façade affixed to the building that beckoned, I never did end up getting to go. To this day, I wonder what awaited me in that magical building, and for that reason I’ve yet to forgive my wicked parents who so obviously didn’t love me.

Out on a late night joyride just a few weeks ago, I noticed that the defunct pizza/bar/barbecue experiment Creekside Pizzeria was now BJ’s Pizza Palace and Sports Bar. As an adult armed with my own money, transportation and free will, I set out to make right what once went wrong, and close yet another unfinished chapter in the meandering saga of my existence.

During my first visit, the main dining room was still being remodeled (though the place had been open a month already), so we went in the back door … and into a sports bar. Taking in all the colorful flickering images around me, I suddenly realized that to an adult, perhaps a sports bar is tantamount to the funland I’d always expected to find within those walls as a child Keno, video lottery, glimmering bottles of various hooch, music, TVs on every wall with sports on all of them. A grownup’s wonderland. But alas, I wasn’t interested in any of that; I was there to rate the food.

Burgers are good, and appear to be named for friends and family. They were all a bit messy. The Jeff ($8.50) contains cheddar, Swiss, avocado and mushrooms. The Robert ($8.50) is the “breakfast burger” with ham, bacon, cheese and an egg. The unconventional Val burger ($8.50) pairs the patty with ham, avocado, cream cheese and pineapple. The decidedly different combination pleased all who tasted it.

All of the sides were good. The fries were the lightly battered type that retain their crispiness throughout your meal. The jo-jos a preparation of potato I usually avoid were small, crisp wedges rather than limp, bloated fried baked potato quarters. I recommend them. The chili ($3.50 cup, $5.50 bowl) is also worth trying. It’s a blend where the ingredients are distinct; tomato, beef, onions and beans all recognizable within, not just a lumpy brown sauce. But mozzarella is the wrong topping here.

BJ’s also has fabulous broasted chicken ($8.50 for 4-piece with jo-jos, large buckets available), and the chicken wings on the appetizer menu ($8), thick drumette pieces available in hot, barbecue and teriyaki, do not disappoint. We also ordered Jalapeno Bottle Caps, a strange appetizer I’d never seen before (but probably would have if I spent more time in sports bars). They turned out to be battered and fried pickled jalapeno rings. Pretty neat really, though obviously a factory-frozen product.

One disappointment was the Southwest chicken salad ($8.50). Though comprised of iceberg blend, green bell peppers, tortilla chips and those jalapeno bottle caps with sliced grilled chicken on top, the promised black beans and corn were nowhere to be found.

Though the staff is pleasant and helpful, there are still kinks that need to be worked out. On all of my visits, we had to ask for things that should have been brought automatically. Also consistent were the timing snafus, as every visit our appetizers were brought out with the entrees. But BJ’s, though re-opened by the same owners who ran it for 23 years before it became Creekside, is still young. These are but minor infractions, and I’m confident that when I check back in down the road, they’ll have things more or less ironed out.