Bear Roots Tavern — Restaurant in Escondido

I had been waiting for this place to open for months, and months, and months. The sign, "Coming Soon!" had been on the building forever, and they finally got over all the hurdles and opened. Last night was our first opportunity to visit. The parking lot is, well, meh... But you aren't going for the parking lot. The exterior of the building matches the rest of the strip mall, so it doesn't stand out. Which, in my mind, makes sense as it would feel weird if it did. But, walk into the place and it's something else. In a good way. Clean, open, warm. Spaced out well enough that you're not sitting on top of your neighbors, but adjustable enough to accommodate larger groups. They've also got some hi-tops along the wall nearest the parking lot which has roll-up doors I thought was a nice tough, bringing the outside in. I mean, you're looking at the parking lot. But hey, at least it's semi-fresh air. They've got a bar along one wall which seats 8-10, and the decor there is nice and clean. A fridge is stocked to the side for take-away beers, too.

The beer there is really good. I like a good IPA, and tried the Rooted in the West American IPA. It was tasty, and I liked that they served it in an IPA glass instead of a standard pint glass. It makes a huge difference. Trust me, I'm almost a doctor.

For dinner we started with the appetizer mixer which is all handmade right there. Mozzarella sticks? Hand breaded. Fried pickles? Spears, and also hand breaded. Onion rings? Tempura battered and fluffy. Zucchini sticks? Fluffy, huge, and delicious. My wife ordered the Cali medium cooked medium. I ordered the smoked brisket nachos with the jalapeño cheese. Both came out at the same time (pro-tip: when somebody orders an appetizer as their meal, it should be obvious, and you should serve it at the same time you serve the other dinner items, just like they did here). The burger was cooked to perfection. I tried it, and I've got to say, it was a damn fine burger. Most folks think you really can't do much with a burger. They're pretty basic compositions. But, I think you'll notice when one os executed poorly, so it would make sense when you notice that one is executed well. This one was executed well. I can't put my finger on what I liked about it so much. Maybe it was the crust (the good kind) on the patty, the slight black pepper and seasoning flavor to the meat, the fresh brioche bun, the quality of the cheddar cheese, I honestly don't know. It was really, really good, though. The smoked brisket nachos did not disappoint, either. The brisket was perfectly cooked. Brisket is easy to cook poorly, and hard to cook well. This stuff was wonderfully tender with a great flavor. The jalapeño cheese was like nachos cheese, but with a sneaky kick. The cilantro-lime sour cream was a surprising addition, too. If I had to critique anything, there seemed to be an abundance of watercress and cilantro on the top. I'd have been happy with some finely chopped cilantro lightly sprinkled over the top. But, make no mistake, it was fantastic and I ate the whole thing, diet be damned.

Overall, I really liked this place and will be going back soon. I'm looking forward to working my way around both the tap...

I sent this email on 8/25/25 and never got a response.

I am a regular who lives in the neighborhood. I called on Sunday 8/24/25 at 10:15pm to see if the kitchen was still open. The first call was disconnected. The second time I called, a woman answered the phone and put me on hold while seeing if the kitchen was still open. After waiting for a minute, I was taken off hold. I heard voices in the background and then the phone was hung up. I called 4 more times. The phone was picked up and then I was hung up on. Since I live 1 minute away, I drove over. The sign said open. As I pulled up, both FOH employees hurried to the door and flipped the sign while locking the door. This was at 10:25pm. The business hours state that 11pm is closing. I've been told that the kitchen closes around 10:30pm, which is why I called.

I extremely disappointed with the level of service. They did try to make it up to me since I am a local, but it was too little too late. According to the employees, the phone is broken. Just wanted to pass along the information in case they didn't. I appreciate your time in reading my message.

On 10/6/25 I went back in. We ordered 2 cups of chili, fries and a side of beer cheese. It took over 30 minutes for the chili and it was cold. So was the beer cheese on top. 15 minutes later, we were served chili again. It was cold. 20 minutes later we received luke warm chili brought out my a kitchen staff member. It was inedible due to the overwhelming bleach smell coming from the food. The table behind us had ordered chili cheese fries. Their food seemed to be ok.

Don't have a bad experience here. They will try to poison you and management...

I gotta be completely honest here. I have NEVER had such horrible service and food at a brewery. We really wanted to love this place because we want to support local businesses and it's really close to our home. The place was not busy whatsoever, with only 25% of seats filled during a quiet Monday night. But our server took over 20 minutes to come to our table to take our drink order or even acknowledge us. Then she took 15 minutes to bring our beers over, and when she came back she said "ok you're order is placed now" which was very odd and awkward since we placed it 15 minutes prior. She didn't come back to check on any other tables near us and I can visibly tell everyone is pissed in here. Other people with different servers are getting the same experience. The food arrived 55 mins after we sat down and we were hoping it would redeem the exoerience.... but it worsened it. We didn't order anything fancy, just fires, a pizza, and a pretzel. The fries were so hard and over fried they were inedible. Our server brought back a completely different type of fry which is crazy? Do they just fry up whatever frozen fries they have? The pretzel and pizza were decent at best, but the pretzel also tasted and appeared to be a frozen pretzel they heated up. You need to rehire or retrain you'll entite staff immediately. I promise I am not a Karen and I do not review often, but I feel like the owners need to know. They'll never make it if they don't change the service and food up real quick. I'm just saying what everyone else was...