Bull and Bear Tavr'n & Table — Restaurant in Houston

Showed up on prime rib night. We decided to sit at the bar. The first 2 beers that I asked for were not available. Ordered the appetizer. Jalapeno boats. Good flavor and very well done. Our waitress Kim was great at first. Was very friendly & engaged in conversation. Answered all of our questions when asked. Had a couple of happy hour beers &  we were ready to order our entrees. Decided to go ahead w/the prime rib & change the sides. We also decided to go with the half roasted chicken. Upon ordering, found out that the 1/2 roasted chicken was not available. They were out of that as well. Needless to say we were a bit disappointed & changed it to the mushroom & beef pie. We looked at the menu & the prime rib came with mixed vegetables & scalloped potatoes. I'm not a big of a fan of scalloped potatoes or mixed vegetables. I decided to change them to one basic side & 1 premium side. The basic side cost $1.50, & the premium side cost $2. Considering the fact that my meal came with two sides, figured We would be charged the difference between the basic side & the premium side, which would be $0.50. We were told that as well. Upon ordering, she told us that we would be charged the entire $2. We then pointed out that we should have just kept both of my sides as normal & just added a premium side for $2 instead of getting two sides & getting charged $2. I was explained that that's just the way it was. I could tell that she was getting a little tense, my waitress, with the fact that we were upset. We have been in the food industry. This is not something I wanted to project on her. I was upset with the fact that mgmnt had decided to charge people for sides when they substitute. Instead of charging the difference. If the mgmnt or owner decided it was cost-effective to only offer exactly what they put as sides with the specials. They should specify on the menu "no substitutions". IF they are lenient on making substitutions, they should notate that you should pay full price for that substitute. Or at least notate a specific cost difference to do so. This was poor judgement on the mgmnt part & puts the server in a bad position. The customer is questioning them, b/c the server does not know how to handle the situation. As a result our server became very tense, angry, frustrated, & projected her frustrations on us. She did not come to us, ask us how we were doing at a certain point. Other servers ended up asking us if we needed anything. By the end of the night she was packing her purse & leaving right in front of us and taking shots at the bar. I politely made it a point to set her aside & tell her we were not upset with her. She said "I'm sorry, I did think you were angry with me." A member of management showed up later that night. I'm guessing the night manager? Kim disappeared for a while, guessing that she told him the story of her experience & what happened. That is when she actually continued to disappear from our table. Was a little bit disappointed that he did not come to our table & question how we were doing. I even noticed him walking around the restaurant and making rounds to ask everyone else. To end. It seemed that they cater to a lot of the regulars at the bar. I understand that. But you have new people, my friend & I have been twice. Needless to say, not quite impressed. Your regulars will tend to drop off because of certain reasons & you want to continue building a customer base. This is NOT the way to do it.

Side note. I told the waitress that there was no toilet paper in the second girls restroom. And went back there are several times and it still was...

A big bucket of "meh". Came in with a friend due to an email special. Not really a special, since the same thing is available to everyone, regardless of being on their supposed exclusive deal list. Was surprised to find that they were out of the first two beers ordered. Pretty poor for a place that prides itself on its beer selection. Had an appetizer that was pretty good. Fair warning, don't order the jalapeño boats if you are sensitive to heat. Tasty, but lacking the advertised shrimp. My friend said she got a piece, I lacked it completely. When we were preparing to order our entrées, we asked about substitution, and we're told that we'd have to pay the difference between the price of the regular sides and the "premium" sides. Later when we actually ordered, the story changed. We'd now have to pay full price for the side, basically making us lose a side, had we just ordered an extra rather than substitute. We asked about the logic in that, the bartender Kim assumed we were angry and pretty much disengaged and ignored us. Her answer was "well, that's just the way it is" and walked away. Even after letting her know that we didn't hold her personally responsible, she was still standoffish. The food was adequate. Nothing outstanding. Prime rib was an OK cut, and wasn't really as rare as requested. Steak and mushroom pie was a bit salty, but not bad. The happy hour beer prices aren't significantly different from regular prices in most cases. Overall, not a great experience, not horrible, just meh. With all of the interesting places in this city that have above average food and service, I'll probably find a better place to...

My boyfriend and I have come here 3 times now. The first time, we sat at a table, and it took almost 30 minutes for anyone to come over and even take our drink orders. We were there for about 2hrs, even though our food came out quickly. We were annoyed, but the restaurant was busy, so we tried to be understanding. But we would go 20 minutes without seeing our server. It was frustrating. The food, however, was EXCELLENT. So we didn't write this place off completely. Everyone has bad days.

The second time was on the 4th of July, and the experience was much better. We were actually able to sit at the bar, so we received prompt attention. Again, the food was absolutely delicious. We spent the afternoon visiting with the bartenders and watching Jaws.

We just tried to eat there again. There were no seats at the bar, so we took a table right next to the bar, in full view of every employee. We were ignored for 15 minutes before we walked out. It wasn't even that busy. I'm so disappointed.

I really wish they would hire more servers.

I'm adding to my review. We ordered from here through Amazon tonight, but I'm sitting here hungry, because they left off my entree. We got a refund, but after waiting for delivery, I didn't have time to get anything else to eat before I had to work. We don't go to this restaurant to dine in, because the service sucks, so we thought we might try to order delivery to avoid going in. But I didn't get to eat, and my boyfriend said his chicken fried steak wasn't very good (soggy breading and oil needs to be changed). Oh well, we're done...