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| - I think I once wrote a review for this place and removed it. At any rate, the Black Bear Diner (BBD) on Las Vegas's west side needs to be reviewed. I once put up photos for it.
I recall discovering it around 2005 and I'm not even sure there were other BBD stores in the valley at that time. However, it appears that there are now a foursome or thereabouts. Regardless, this is my "go to" Black Bear Diner when in Sin City.
This is solid eating, folks. I'm more of a lunch and dinner person, but I have been here for breakfast. Breakfast may be good, but the lunch and dinner fare is great. I like the selection of entrees, the portion size, and the taste of their food. It's far from fine dining, but it certainly fills the stomach and is a good value.
Also, if you think The Strip is the real Vegas, you're kidding yourself. I'm joking. However, If you want to rub elbows with the real Vegas, come here, especially on weekend mornings for breakfast when there's a wait. You'll see newer cookie cutter home dwellers, mobile park residents, locals, foreigners, New Yorkers, Californians, tourists, retirees, casino employees, and employees of anything and anywhere nearby. It almost makes the crowds on The Strip look like the fake Vegas. Well, that's not true. However, the reality is that this is the amalgamation of what makes Las Vegas tick, breaking bread right alongside you.
In concert with that, the service is informal, friendly, and even animated. The same could be said of their patrons.
Of about a handful of visits over the years, two really stand out. On a breakfast visit, the duo behind us was very interesting, but I was the one positioned to see them. There was a sinewy muscular guy who looked like a gangster wearing a polka dot sundress with white tennis shoes and nylons and his hair in a ponytail sitting with this big guy with a beer gut in tattered jeans and work boots. Now, while it does not matter, the hows and whys this incongrous duo are lunching together might still have you scratching your head. And you just tell yourself that you're not in, say, Cape Girardeau, Missouri. But it wasn't just that table. Everyone in there was interesting in that "everything and the kitchen sink" Las Vegas way ... and the place was packed.
On a more recent dinner visit, a friend and I were discussing the whereabouts of a previous long term employee we were very fond of, in addition to talking about friends going back to about age 24. A friendly enough patron approached us as he finished his dinner and started talking to us about the employee, who he also liked. While that was good to know, that also meant that he had probably listened to half an hour worth of armchair psychology. After chatting with us, he left. We then paid the bill and also left. Once we got into the car, we busted up laughing because we were wondering how much of our conversation he had eavesdropped on. And you just tell yourself that you're not in, say, Seattle or Minneapolis.
In addition to their good food, amicable service, and the trademark quirky theme and decor, this is the sort of stuff that makes this BBD even more memorable. The people are "real" in that irreverent, free wheeling "doesn't matter where you're from" Las Vegas sort of way, making this more of a "real" Las Vegas experience.
Black Bear Diner really covers the bases ... from Mt. Shasta, where the chain was born on a hillside where black bears eyed the strawberries, to the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle to the Central Valley of California to this one, at Trop and Decatur in Las Vegas. And, regardless of which BBD I've eaten at, one can count on their consistency and on delivering.
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