I normally love Black Bear Diner. It's a good family restaurant at a decent price. But this location needs some serious help.
My husband, daughter and I arrive at 8:30 on a Friday night and are seated almost immediately. The waitress takes our drink order and about five minutes later she takes our food order. Everything seems totally fine. Then we play the waiting game.
Two tables who arrived after us got their meals before us. One of those tables was a party of seven. Now normally I'm not one to complain about a long wait time. Initially I thought it was just because I had ordered a ribeye and that takes a bit longer to cook.
By the time we got our food it was 20 minutes till closing. The party of seven that arrived after us had already eaten their dinner and desert and left. And the worst part? My steak was two-thirds fat and gristle, my vegetables were cold and my fries were horribly over salted.
So we're trying to eat as fast as possible and get out before 10pm, which is when they close. The waitress didn't bother to offer us dessert (no surprise there) and unceremoniously dropped our check on the table. I take this as a sign she wants us to leave as soon as possible so we pack our food up and go up to pay the check.
The man who closed out our check is the same man I saw wandering around the dining area all night, loudly talking to his coworkers. So my husband I both got the vibe he was the person in charge at the time. He asked how everything was and we told him it was all pretty awful. The first thing he does is look at our check and inform us that we were only waiting 18 minutes. As if we have no concept of time. Then he goes into a line of excuses "we're understaffed" "This time of night we lose a lot of people" "It's a strange transition period." Not once does he apologize for the terrible service or food. Then he tries to placate us with a free pie. Finally I tell him I don't want a pie, I want the same level of service any other customer would have.
I will never be returning to this location ever again. The location south of the I-10 might be a bit out of the way but at least they value their customers over there.