Black Bear Diner

I have fond memories of going to Black Bear Diner — down home food with a kind of kitschy theme. I was hoping to relive that the other day, but alas, it was not meant to be. For a place that wasn’t terribly busy, it took a really long time to even get drinks. I feel bad for the waitresses though, because it looked like they were horribly understaffed that day. They were really doing their best to get orders in and get the food out quickly.
As far as the food itself — it’s typical diner food. I had the cinnamon roll french toast. It was good!
All in all, I would much rather come here than go to IHOP or Denny’s anytime!

See my picture for an idea how the meal went. Spoiler… I didn’t eat any of it and wadded up a $ 50 and threw it in the managers face. It was just that good.

Hadn’t been here in a couple of years due to poor service and mediocre food. Tried to go this morning for pancakes. We arrived and put our name on the list and waited outside along with other groups. Noticed nobody waiting inside walked in and continued to wait. Then saw waitress seating people who had literally just arrived and did this with more than one group. I left and warned other groups waiting. Guess I’ll try again in another couple years

Took my 10 yo granddaughter here for breakfast back in November 2015. We enjoyed the great eats. The waitress really set it off when I had her explain to my granddaughter how the tiny bear paw prints get all over the napkins and plates. She explained that they hide in back of the dishwasher and get their dirty paws on everything… dirty, meaning by means of chocolate syrup. Try as the staff might, they just can’t get the stains out.

Amazing service! ASK for ARMANDO. Truly impressed coming from a veteran caterer. Food was very homey and atmosphere matched. I would go back for breakfast anytime!

Comfortable and friendly, this place definitely puts you at ease with warm smiles and great service.
One of my parents favorite breakfast spots, its funny to see them joke back and forth with the waitresses. I my parents corny banter & bickering back and forth is quite funny to other people.
On to the food. Great portions, I went with the Joe’s Hobo Omelette ($ 10.99). A huge omelette with smoked ham, tasty sausage, cheddar, spinach and onion. The sausage is homemade and is a recipe from Portuguese setters in central California. Yum.
I’m diggin’ this place. Good service & good people, quick to re-​fill your coffee cup and ask if there’s anything else you need.

I love this franchise but the rohnert park one just doesn’t care enough. We each got breakfast and each part of our dish was cooked wrong or didn’t come out right. This use to be one of my favs

I had big hopes for my dinner here, especially after reading on my menu how the restaurant chain, under the direction of the two prideful owners in their food quality, branched out from one place to the multiple branch chain of today.
I ordered the new trout dinner, and my first course the dinner salad (a $ 4 option «special»). Nothing more than simple lettuce, a few tomatoes, and pale shredded carrots. ugh! Then the entrée, that at least looked good covered in a tomato sauce with spinach, which wasn’t bad except for way too salty taste. The deep fried trout was equally sad with excessive breaded crust and little distinctive fish taste. I think a grilled trout would have been a much better match with the tomato/​spinach sauce.

Fun place to eat with friends! I visited this location on Easter and they were crowded but still managed to seat us in 20 minutes. Service was friendly and attentive filling up water cups and making sure food was okay. As for the food, it was delicious! Most meals come with big portions so make sure you come hungry!

Now this is California! Printed the coupon for free bear claw and coffee, walked in and was totally met with enthusiasm!
Got seated and had a cup o’ Joe in front of me while my sweet server heated the ginormous bear claw (blueberry, in this case).
So pleasant to sip my coffee and nibble at this hella licious pastry.
Do stop
Do park
Do try
It’s great

Hello, I feel that I have been singled out at your Rohnert Park location and possibly discriminated against.
Table ²⁰⁄₂ Guests 2
@2:36 PM today 3÷04÷16
It looks like Order # 30 141
I came in, and ordered the Chicken avocado club. The waitress was a nice person however the cooks let me down numerous times. Prior to ordering I requested that the bacon would be extra crispy. The manager who was a Hispanic gentleman I didn’t get the name of clearly understood my request and talked to the cooks. After some time passed, I received the club sandwich plate, and the garden salad did not even have a single cherry tomato or slice of cucumber, or anything, a really bad salad overall.
Also the sandwich had barely any meat, and they did not even put a SINGLE PIECE of bacon on the whole thing.
I reiterated to the manager if he understood me and he said he did, so why then was I singled out, just because I requested my bacon extra crispy?
Yes.
After they took the plate and put maybe one slice of bacon for the whole sandwich, I also noticed just how thin the pieces of chicken were. Including the avocado they used was NOT fresh, it was brown, I had to scoop it out of the sandwich and put it on the plate and not eat it. I did not want to cause a problem so I just ate the sandwich and left.
EVERYONE around me had a nice sandwich with clearly a lot of meat on it and. all the people on the other tables were Hispanic. The Waitress was Hispanic, the cooks were Hispanic.
I was even with an acquaintance who was Hispianic and ordered something and they clearly were given a big portion of meat /​bacon to them, which was cooked perfectly and fresh as well.
I feel seriously discriminated against and I was forced to pay for this meal. Blackbear use to be a great place, and im not so sure now? Will be contacting the better business bureau.

My family and I love the food. We usually see people we know here so it seems that a lot of other people like the food too. I wish the jukebox was still free but what can you do?

Sat at bar. Ordered sandwiches. I watch them sit my plate down on lower level of counter. Then put it back up for them to warm up. My wife ordered a cold sandwich we watch the food just sit there. Watched their cooks jump on each other back when a girl not more then 16 came in with mini skirt. I watch the waiters switch stuff off plates. As well as 5 plates just sat there. First and last time. Will be forwarding to corporate, cause that’s dangerous to have workers react to a child like that.
Food you can tell it’s been transferred. Couldn’t talk to manager. Bad. Very bad attitude. Oh charged $ 25 for a cold sandwich. $ 35 for hit sandwich. Will never set foot in there again

I was expecting to hate this place. Although everyone I know raves about it. Only because when we showed up the place was busy as hell. We had to wait and they were short staffed it just seemed to be a mess of a situation and the people were not slowing down coming through the door. Despite my reservations, we stayed to give this place a try. Our server was great. Overwhelmed but on top of everything. He didn’t even write down our orders so I was expecting them to be wrong. As were waiting for our meals people are still coming through the door. Little to my surprise, our plates came out quickly and exactly how we ordered them. Everything was delicious, hot, on point and huge portioned. I was happily wrong about this place. The place is great. And the servers are awesome. They can definitely handle things under pressure! Can’t wait to go back.

I went recently and asked for the «fruit bowl» and the «bear claw» french toast.
When my meal arrived, I got a bowl of Oatmeal and a pastry. I asked the waiter to take the food back and then got something else than what I wanted. At that point, I just got up and left.
There was a bit of a language barrier, but even so, I pointed to what I wanted on the menu and still it was incorrect.

This used to be a good little diner to go to, but that was a few years back. My wife ordered the fried chicken and I ordered the bigfoot country fried steak. The service was OK, but overall, we think there has been a change in management over the last year or two and it hasn’t been for the better.
The fried chicken was very over-​breaded (too thick) and overcooked. My country fried steak was OK, but it would be rather difficult to screw that up. My wife had mixed vegetables which she said were good. I had the «Italian green beans» which are simply cut string beans out of a can. We both had mashed potatoes which were pretty good. $ 14 for the fried chicken plate and $ 15 for the bigfoot country fried steak. The prices are steep for the quality of the food.
We ordered a couple of bear claws to take home for the next day. When we went to get them out of the package, we found that they didn’t include the icing to put on them. Very disappointed as I didn’t have any powdered sugar to whip up some of my own, so they pretty much sucked. They weren’t sweet at all without the icing.
We have had our last meal at this particular Black Bear Diner. For the money, there is much better out there.

I had wanted to try this place since a friend told me about it and i finally did. We were headed to the casino and were hungry. as I do not love the prices of the casino eateries, i thought why not. I am really glad that I did.
After a short 10 minute wait (was during Sunday brunch time) we got seated and given the very cool newspaper/​menu. The prices and choices were great. I got the biscuits and gravy and a BLT sandwich, opted for a green salad instead of fries. All of it was great and very tasty. They really know how to cook bacon as it was perfect and the gravy was just spicy enough to make me happy. Some people may think that it has a bit too much pepper but I loved it.
My partner had a burger and it looked delicious. The salads were fresh and very crisp.
The service was fast and friendly and believe me this place was super busy.
If you want good portions at great prices this place has just that.
I took away one star as I was not too crazy about the crowded layout and distance from the main road but I would go back in a pinch.

They got the Bob’s Big Bear Burger again. A huge burger! I had 2 bites of it. Even though i am still very hesitant after the last visit. The burger has a lot of flavor, and can easily be shared. My daughter’s chicken was better this time. Not sure if i will ever try a Bear claw again.

This is a laid back diner not really known for anything except as a place to hang out over a cup of Joe, shoot the shit and enjoy the camaraderie among fellow diners. I know by saying the food here is superior to Denny’s or Applebee’s isn’t really saying much. It has a casual, family style vibe often reflective of suburbia America and serves affordable, home-​style comfort foods. I can’t single out anything in the menu that is worth recommending and neither is there anything totally disgusting. The menu features run-​of-​the-​mill diner fare all falling within the confines of mediocrity.
Next the ambiance was just as boring as the food. There were no surprises here with the usual service counter dominating the interior and the open kitchen against the back wall while booths were against the front wall. It was clean and bright but still old school. There was a cute jukebox that blared out songs that belonged to a bygone era. Hopefully, I was not the only old fart around who appreciated the music. It did liven up the otherwise drab atmosphere. Unless you have a weird fetish for bear artifacts, there was nothing else in the décor that was eye-​catching.
It is funny that only in a diner do I ever get called a ‘sweetie’. Aw-​shucks! What is there not to like about this place? Let’s begin with the food. The portions were gigantic, a little pricey for diner food and I would like to think that nothing was frozen here. I was trying to eat healthy for that day and BBD gave me a chance to try their eggbeaters VEGETARIAN Omelet ($ 10.29) with fresh fruit salad. Since I didn’t request the omelet to be unsalted, I would have liked it with a pinch of salt and a sprinkling of pepper. As far as eggbeaters go, they are touted to have half the calories, fat and cholesterol compared to shell eggs. Go figure…
On a previous visit to BBD. I ordered the California Ham Eggs Benedict ($ 10.49) although it was California Bacon in the menu. I substituted the bacon with ham, forgoing taste for less fat. It had a pair of cheerful poached eggs nestled on ham and split English muffin and ladled with gloopy Hollandaise. It came with hash browns that were pretty well executed with a crispy brown crust and not mushy nor burnt. The hollandaise sauce had a rich yellowish consistency albeit a tad bland. Perhaps their corporate recipe needed revision.
I was randomly joined by an acquaintance that comes here regularly every Sunday like clockwork. Ron is 89 years old and he usually orders the Reuben Sandwich ($ 10.49). It looked perfectly decent with nice thin slices of corned beef topped with sauerkraut, 1000 island dressing and melted Swiss, all of it between toasted rye. The grease from the meat and the cheese soaked through the bread and on to the plate. Yikes! It all fitted the greasy spoon mindset I should have expected for this place. I couldn’t help but ask Ron if the fat and cholesterol bothered him. His reply was short and to the point. «You know sonny… fat and cholesterol are the least of my worries at my age!» I wish my cardiologist heard that! Ron by the way is a perfect picture of health.
BBD is adequate for what it is… a neighborhood diner. Based on the food alone, BBD merited only 2 stars but being a friendly, welcoming diner, it deserved an additional half star and so rounded up to 3.

My fellow dining companion, Rachel, and I decided to have dinner at Black Bear Diner after an exhausting two hours of looking at Christmas light displays in Rohnert Park. Being in Rohnert Park, there are a lack of dining options available after 9 pm, aside from your typical fast food establishments.
Black Bear Diner is like any other diner in California, except they serve American comfort food like chicken pot pies, chicken steak dinners and greasy breakfast foods. We were quickly seated by the hostess and given menus that resembled old American newspapers from the 60s.
Rachel ordered the French Toast combo, with two eggs and two sausages. She said the food was delicious and comforting.
I had the chicken pot pie. The crust was golden brown and very flaky like a homemade chicken pot pie. The only negative aspect of my pie was that the gravy inside was very thin, soup-​like, instead of the usual thick consistency that gravy is inside chicken pot pies. The vegetables that accompanied it wasn’t very appetizing and were soggy.
Considering BBD is a diner, I don’t hold high expectations for the quality of food served. The service was only adequate because our waitress never refilled our waters. But the prices I paid for our meal was higher than I would have liked, considering the consistency of the food. If you find yourself in Rohnert Park in search of late night food, I recommend In-​n-​Out or Sharis (open ²⁴⁄₇).