Tempe Black Bear Diner

Reviews 4

JA

Jaquline Margwarth

This was a terrible restaurant experience. I stopped in to the Black Bear Diner today for lunch since I live in the area and have driven past it a few times. I had high hopes since they had a couple good reviews on the internet, this image was shattered once I entered the establishment. I will preface this review with the fact that I am a veteran restaurant manager. They were very busy, as are most restaurants on Friday for lunch which is usually a good sign. I was a solo diner so I requested to be seated at the counter seating in front of the kitchen. My server greeted me promptly and she was the only scrap of good in my experience. She was warm and welcoming, and gave me some general helpful information that the portions are large. I ordered a sandwich with no cheese and no mayo, and my server entered my order correctly right away. I know she ordered it correctly because the expo screen was right in front of me and I could see all the orders. I could also see that several orders were "in the red" which means it was taking longer than it should have for many other people in the restaurant to get their lunches. As I waited, and waited, the unprofessional kitchen staff were making a lot of unnecessary noise that was distracting to me and Im sure to others dining at the counter as well. I watched as several orders came back to the kitchen for not being executed correctly. After seeing this I sat crossing my fingers that the cooks could handle holding the cheese and mayo on my sandwich, good thing I didnt hold my breath. I witnessed my sandwich being put in the window, two servers looked at the ticket, realized it was not for their table and walked away. Finally another server walked over and delivered my sandwich, which I immediately could see mayo glaring at me from between the toast and lettuce. I alerted the server that there was mayo on my sandwich and she took it back to the kitchen. The kitchen then denied that there was mayo on the sandwich. Then the manager walked behind the counter, to see what was going on, and I see the kitchen insisting to her that there was no mayo on the sandwich. The manager then brought the sandwich back to me and told me there was no mayo on it. I then lifted the toast to reveal to her that it was indeed slathered with mayo. She took the sandwich away, put it in a bus bucket, and then proceeded to take it out of the bus bucket and put it back in front of me asking if I wanted to "munch on the fries". I refused that offer as I would like to enjoy hot french fries with my sandwich. When she asked the kitchen to remake my order the cook rolled his eyes, and started to rant how everything on his station has come back today. Then the cook next to him wiped his nose with his bare hand and went back to preparing food without washing his hands. It was at that point that I had to leave. I informed my server to cancel my order. The manager never apologized and instead said "No- they are going to remake it for you" I then exited the restaurant. Thank goodness there was a sub shop next store with good service. Dont waste your time with this joke of a restaurant.

LU

lukisha Williams

Compared to the other locations this one would not get great star reviews. I wanted to take my pregnant sister and nephew to breakfast as they have never been to a black bear diner.We went into the restaurant today and got seated and had no one come to our table for at least 10minutes to check on us. Finally someone came and said "Im not your waiter but I will give you drinks. This was fine so we placed drink orders. A waiter came to take our order 20 minutes later and things seemed to be going fine. We waited a hour to get food with a restless 3 year old. The table next to us was nice enough and offered my nephew food from their own plates as they had noticed that we were the only ones not being serviced. I went to get management and she said "Ill check on your food. She returned 10 minutes later with our food and said "Ill check with the waiter as your ticket says it was placed 25minutes ago and we are not suppose to hold tickets". Needless to say she never gave an apology for the wait,never came back with any details on why we had to wait forever to get served. This is not typical service from these establishments as I frequent the one in Vegas and Chandler. But I will not visit this location again I would say to anyone looking to visit a black bear to go to another location for better service and get the real experience.

ST

Stephani Valdez

We waited for over 30 mins to be seated while the host who took our names, took payments from what seemed to be an endless line of leaving guests. The manager, I think thats who it was, finally came to seat guests and called everyone waiting except us. Another guest mentioned to the manager as he was being seated that we were waiting much longer then he had. When he comes back, he asks our names and we notice the host never even wrote it down, even through he had us repeat the name twice. As the manager finally escorts us to a booth, its clear the place isnt even half way full. The server asks for our drink order and never came back to get our food order! We waited over 30 mins drank one cup of coffee and in that time not one person in the entire place approached us to get our food order. We watched as the hosted and servers rushed around and seemed to ignore us completely. Even when we made eye contact, the servers rushed to the back never asked if we wanted any food. We left after being there almost an hour, still hungry and with a bad taste in our mouths. Very disappointing. Ive heard only good things about this place but after my first experience, Id never recommend anyone to visit this location if its their first time eating at black bear cafe or if their really hungry.

JA

Jared Garner

After having visited the Gilbert location several times and been pleased each time there, I was extremely disappointed with my visit to the Tempe location. There seemed to be a completely inadequate amount of staffing. My server took my drink order and then disappeared for 7 or 8 minutes. When she finally came back, she brought my water, but informed me that "they were brewing coffee." It then took another 10 minutes for me to get a cup of coffee. My meal arrived with only the hash browns being hot. My scramble was lukewarm at best and the biscuit was ice cold. When I asked my server to warm up the biscuit for me, she told me shed just get me a new one. This took almost 15 minutes. I will certainly never again visit this location and I hope this type of service is not indicative of some new company direction with Black Bear Diner as a whole because, as I previously mentioned, I was always pleased with the service and the food at the Gilbert location.