Black Bear Saloon

Was waiting for them to open at 8 once again, nobody home. Went to McDonald’s.
Decent sit down breakfast when they show up

I’ve eaten here twice while traveling. The food was good (has lobster sliders today – yum!) but the service is kind of slow especially for an airport where people don’t necessarily have all day

My team and I frequent the black bear on a weekly basis. The service is always great and they rush orders for us when we are running late. Perfect for a beer before a flight. Anything fried is good as is the French onion soup. I would skip the pastas and salad on the menu. Also no need for the deserts.
Some classics:
Buffalo chicken nuggets — 4
Onion rings — 4
Curly fries — 4
French onion soup — 4
Moza stick — 5
Pizzas — 3
Turkey burger — 4

I frequent the BDL airport and I stop in here for lunch every time.
The salads are very good, I recommend the beet salad with steak. The chicken is reheated I believe but the steak is always fresh and tender.
Service is usually pretty quick and always friendly.
For airport food, it’s pretty darn good.

When it comes to food and drinks at Bradley airport this is the best to get both at one location. The service is fine and the food is good. Several local beers to choose from and the food choices are nice at the airport. Good place to kill some time before a flight.

Great lobster sliders and pear salad! I love how they bring the bill even before you get food so you can be ready to pay and leave to catch your flight. Service is good… but the sliders are great!

There aren’t many options for food at BDL, but Black Bear Saloon is a solid one. First of all, the prices are decent (by airport standards, at least), and the food is pretty good. I usually get a veggie burger, which although I don’t think is made fresh, is pretty good and hearty. Their fries are also thick cut and have always been fresh when I’ve had them.
The beer is the real draw, though. Their selection isn’t huge, but there’s an emphasis on local and regional craft beers, which I appreciate. They also tend to get things I haven’t seen elsewhere, including limited releases and unusual brewery collaborations. Since I no longer live in Connecticut, it’s a great way to check out the cool stuff I’d otherwise miss out on. Plus, beers are VERY reasonable, ranging from $ 5 – 7 dollars. That’s reasonable for bar prices, and downright cheap for an airport!
Overall, it may not be an earth-​shattering experience, but as my usual stop before flying out of Connecticut, I always leave satisfied.

Nasty, rotten meat, poorly made.
Had the Chicken Nachos. Chicken was about ½ a cup of pressed precooked chicken, cut into about 6 pieces. Each cube was about 1.5 inches on each side. Worse yet, the chicken was rotten. I bit into a piece and yech. I looked closer and it was grey. Not cooked, not browned, not whitish, it was deadly, grisly GREY.
Staying to the side without meat, I tried the rest. Canned jalapenos, cheese was melted but was a big lump in one area and was a cold piece of plastic when it got to me. Salsa was a glop of something cheap out of a jar. I didn’t even want to risk the dollop of sour cream.
Ok, I also order fries. How can that go wrong? Well… The fries are the awful, batter dipped kind so the restaurant has an easier time serving crisp fries. If the cook doesn’t know how to make fries and get them served up rapidly enough, a restaurant can serve this awful invention. I broke open the first of these «fries» and they were not cooked inside at all – still cold. I am allergic to wheat in a serious way so I can’t eat the «fries». Not their problem but wish they called their «Fries» what they are – «potato fritters»
The fountain soda was good and the server kept refilling it as I examined the nachos and fries.
The restaurant was ½ full but the waitress said the cooks were shouting orders and tables out for service as fast as they possibly could and told wrong orders for wrong tables. How can this be so hard to do? You have a captive audience and the food you make is simple. Just train and use a little better quality ingredients.
Left a big tip for suffering server and paid my $ 21+ dollars for garbage food and hustled to my flight.
BEWARE. Spend money at the news stand for your meal and watch CNN at the gate. It will be worth it to avoid this place.

I found the beer section and the quality of the food to be very good compared to other airport restaurants.

Popped over here because I had an hour to kill before a flight and there aren’t a lot of great options in the Hartford airport. If my waitress had been any friendlier, it almost would’ve been uncomfortable. I’m joking, but seriously. I had the farmer’s market burger or something like that – burger topped with avocado, fried egg, and bacon – with sweet potato fries and a Two Roads Double IPA. Honestly, the food on the menu looked great for the price, and the food was just as tasty as you might find in town. There were so many good options on the menu that I had a little bit of order anxiety. Nice little place with a bunch of TVs, so the only thing better would’ve been if there had been a good game on to watch while I was there. The restaurant has ample seating and with Hartford never being all that busy, I can’t imagine there’s ever a wait for a table.
To complain about waiting 5 minutes for someone coming over is, in my mind, a little ridiculous. If you want good food at a sit down place with a great selection of local and delicious beers, come here. If you’re in a rush and can only spare 5 or 10 minutes to eat, go somewhere else and let this place live. All in all, I was seated, waited on, and finished a beer and my meal in under an hour. Not bad, if you ask me.

Food is average but the place is a good location to wait for flights. I had an interesting and refreshing local beer that I enjoyed.

Extremely average.
Disinterested server. Torn booth seats. Loud.
The Cobb Salad was small and mostly lettuce. All other ingredients (turkey, egg, tomatoes, onion) were basically garnishes.
Meh at best.

We had an hour before our flight so we decided to get breakfast here. We (and another group) waited 5 minutes before someone acknowledged us to seat us. Once seated it took another 5 minutes for a server to come over to us. The food also took longer than expected. They’re in an airport! Everyone has time limitations. You would think they’d take that into consideration and speed things up. They did make sure to leave the check with us long before we actually got our food.
The food was edible. For the most part. There was a very burnt piece of toast on my moms plate. Everything else was fine, but nothing special. They do charge extra for maple syrup for your French toast. We agreed that we’re going to McDonald’s next time.

Had lunch here one day before boarding my flight back to Washington Dulles.
Went with a burger, with cheddar cheese, bacon, mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, onion, no bun or fries (low carb) and a dill pickle spear.
The place was very busy at lunch time — so there was a bit of a wait for my food. But the burger was pretty good.
Wait staff was friendly and attentive.

Not a bad establishment, beer was cold, food menu looked good. Prices were about what I’d expect for craft beers in an airport.
I had a long layover between flights, and still only managed to get two beers, so I expect a bit more attentiveness from the waitstaff, especially in an airport situation when some travelers have little time to spare between flights. Otherwise no complaints, but also nothing jumped out at me as outstanding.

Suprisingly quick. I stopped for a quick New England Clam Chowder (in a bread bowl) and was in and out in less than 15 minutes. The chowder was excellent. The restaurant was about 95% full when I stopped by.

We were really annoyed by our experience at Black Bear Saloon and it seemed as if other diners were also. Unfortunately for this airport restaurant, I bet that patrons are either killing time or in a rush. We were rushing.
The restaurant is divided into two sections. One section protrudes into the walkway and is separated by a low railing. This section is presumably the «outdoor» or «sidewalk» seating area. This area was dominated by two-​seater tables. Conversely, the other section is «inside» and is separated by walls and a lowering gate. This area had a bar and booths. Some of the booths had individual flat-​screen televisions. There were flat-​screen televisions mounted in highly visible areas throughout the restaurant.
We were seated in the outdoor area; however, we asked to move to a booth that had an electrical outlet. They never brought us water. We ordered only one thing: chicken breast sliders. When ordering, M handed the server her credit card and told her that she wanted to pay immediately. Although we told both the hostess and our server that we were in a hurry and only wanted to get food to go, each interaction was segmented by languid periods of time. In fact, it was largely due to this fact that I am giving them two stars.
Black Bear Saloon should be better able to accommodate the two kinds of travelers mentioned earlier: those with ample time and those with none. I saw a man impatiently stand in the middle of the outdoor seating area, cash in hand, waiting to pay for his food and dash off. It was painful to watch and nearly mirrored my own anxiety to get to my plane that was already boarding.
The food itself was tasty. The mini buns were perfectly buttered and toasted. The guacamole sauce was fresh and had an agreeable kick of spice. The chicken was well trimmed and cooked. My only complaint about the food was that each slider had only a small piece of chicken breast on it. The chicken was definitely dwarfed by the bun. Between the four sliders we probably only got half of a chicken breast.

I’ve never been good at knowing whether I can just go sit at the bar if I should wait to be seTed as the sign says. I waited and was looked at like an alien when I asked if could sit at the bar. Then like a moron when I asked if I could have the menu anyway.
She gave me the menu and walked me over to the bar the. Went to grab a menu from the bar. I guess they have a limited supply.
Staff is friendly and I’m motion but the bar handles all the drink orders so they were slow to come back and left me with an empty glass.
The chili while adequate was a flat oval bowl with January base layer of mostly beef and tomato style chili and a second layer of cheese. Seemed more like a dip than a bowl of chili.
Descent tap selection. The alcohol selection was standard fare.
Next time I’ll have to try one of the entrées.

Great to find local brews at the airport for a reasonable price. Service was quick even as popular as this place is.
It’s a local chain that has one in Hartford as well which I also enjoyed. In fact it was more like a night club in downtown Hartford. If staying here and want to see the real one, check the one in downtown out late at night.

«Question, what kind of bear is best?
That’s a ridiculous question.
False. Black bear.» — The Office: Season 3, Episode 20
So what can you say about a place in the airport? Does it have food? Yes. Is the food edible and you don’t want to die on your flight? Yes. Does the service do a good job keeping the drinks filled and they are friendly and courteous? Yes.
Overall, this was a a very nice experience considering the tiny airport that is Bradley and the lack of choices for a sit-​down restaurant (with liquor). Our waitress was attentive and the food came out hot and as expected (tasty, nicely plated and not greasy or sloppy).
The bonus for this place is tons of seating AND a bathroom within the restaurant! Score! Most places within the airport you have to step out of if you need to use the facilities and get in the cattle lines while your things are stuck in the restaurant — not so here. Kudos for that.
We had nachos, a Philly cheesesteak, cheese sticks and boneless chicken wings with a Thai sesame glaze. Overall, everything was tasty and it served as a decent dinner to fill time before our return flight home. I’d visit again for sure.