Black Bear Diner Boise - Entertainment Ave — Restaurant in Idaho

I've been contemplating posting this because I couldn't decide if it was something I should just let go or if something needs to be said. I decided I would write about it because this behavior needs to be corrected & should NEVER happen again.

My family and I went to this location this past Sunday 08/25/24 for brunch. My mom & I arrived at about 9:30 am & were seated quickly. We were waiting for the rest of my family to come which included my brother, his wife, and their two kids.

We were greeted & served by Lucy, & she was wonderful. She was sweet & attentive & got our drinks right away. When my brother & his family joined us, she was still great. My sister-in-law is allergic to dairy products, & she asked for no cheese on her burger, but when it came out, there was cheese. However, Lucy was quick to take it back to the kitchen & bring her a new burger within seconds. I had requested no sausage for my dish, but I did get some pieces, which wasn't a big deal. I just gave them to my mom to eat, & didn't mention anything to Lucy. My brother's toast came buttered when on the menu it said it would come dry, but it didn't bother him either, so he also didn't mention it to Lucy. Everything was going well. We even shared some details of our life with her like how my brother used to work at this same location a couple of years ago while attending college. It held a lot of great memories, so that's one of the reasons we chose to dine there. Overall, we had such a nice time that I was shocked at what happened at the end.

Right before we left, my brother just wanted to let Lucy know what had happened with his toast & wanted to make sure she was aware of it in case someone did actually complain in the future. But the weirdest thing happened, & I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Immediately Lucy's demeanor changed. It was like a flip switched & she became a completely different person. She became rude, defensive, & completely unprofessional. She was not willing to listen & became irritated & said, "I put dry toast." Then she very annoyedly asked, "How can I help resolve the situation?! What do you want me to do about it?!" My brother stood there confused because he wasn't asking her to do anything. He even reiterated that she did a great job & he wasn't bothered by it or complaining--he just wanted to let her know so that she could be aware of it next time. She told my brother, "I don't have time for this. You see I'm really busy; you see all the cooks are busy." She then ESCALATED the situation by saying, "I'm getting the manager. You all need to leave!" Excuse me, but whaaaatt??? We were all calm with her--my mom & I were literally just standing there. A young man with brown, curly hair came up & asked what was going on, followed by what I believe was the shift manager named Kailani. They were both nice & my brother explained what he was trying to tell Lucy. He even let them know he was not trying to get her in trouble; he was just trying to help her. Another server who knew my brother when he used to work there also came up & she was very understanding.

By this point, Lucy was completely agitated & said we all needed to take this up to the front. She was also saying things to me in passing like, "He has mental problems." I honestly couldn't understand why she was reacting this way. It was COMPLETELY DISRESPECTFUL and UNPROFESSIONAL. Imagine if someone was actually complaining to her? What would she have done then?

It was bizarre. I thought to just let it go, but there was absolutely no reason for how she treated my brother. Right before we left, I tried to let her know she had done nothing wrong, & I complimented her & said, "You were great, Lucy. Thank you." To which she snapped, "PLEASE LEAVE! PLEASE LEAVE!" My mother even tried as well & again Lucy said that my brother had mental problems. That was completely insulting, disrespectful, & uncalled for to say that.

Because of this poor experience, I will not recommend this location to anyone anymore & I would HIGHLY DISCOURAGE anyone to be...

Went on a Monday evening to this establishment. It was fairly empty, with approximately 3 parties dining. There was no hostess on site and we were in the front for around 5-10 minutes before being seated. After being seated, we were not introduced to our waitress for another 5 minutes. We were seated right next to the kitchen. Out waitress was uniformed and unprofessional. She was not new (asked) and did not know the menu very well. When taking our drink order she informed us that most cups were dirty, andwe could not receive children's cups at all - which was um...disgusting information to say the least. How is it empty, you have more than 5 staff members in the kitchen with very few clean dishes? When we ordered are food, they informed us we had to re-pick items 3 times - as our waitress would come back and inform us that they were out of food. She did not apologize to us or give us food suggestions after Informing us of each food shortage. She also didn't ask follow up questions such as "how would you like your steak" and was pretty...clueless and unprofessional to say the least, albeit nice. Wondering if they still offer free cornbread before the meal (when I went to Black Bear Diner in Las Vegas, they gave us complimentary bread) - because we didn't receive that. Sitting right by the kitchen, we could hear the whole conversation that was happening - which at times was inappropriately flirtatious between our waitress and one of the kitchen staff. You could see the kitchen staff eating on the line, which is unsanitary and against Idaho Food Code and Health regulations. We ordered salads and we saw our waitress play with her nose ring, and then directly assemble our salads without washing her hands. This is not the biggest deal, but I was a bit disappointed she didn't bring out salads out before the food. When we received our order, half of our food was missing, such as the sausage or bacon that comes with the Mini Volcano, the Aju Sauce that come with the prime rib sandwiches and mushrooms for my steak. When we informed the waitress of our missing items she didn't initiate going retrieve our items, we had to prompt her to go receive them for us - sometimes several times. My steak came out almost completely uncooked - and she didn't offer a refund and I didn't trust the kitchen staff with throwing it back on the grill (since I could hear their whole conversations) so I just took it home to cook it and eat it later. My mashed potatoes were either old or overcooked because they were crispy and brown - the sausages were thrown in the microwave, and the pancakes were cooked unevenly. The prime rib sandwich was good tho, but yeah, most of it was pretty inedible. It took a long time to check out because the waitress was too busy hanging out with the kitchen staff - and not her best friends, which is me, the customer (lmfao). When checking out she said started staring off into space like just standing there for some time instead of actually checking me out. It was... A very weird experience to say the least. Also it was generally messy and musky in there and the water foundation doesn't work anymore. When other customers would walk in, we were informing the other waitress (or our waitress) because they would not even be treated. I filed a corporate complaint as well with more/further details.

Tldr; -Messy/musky -Everything is broken or unclean -Staff was in Lala-land -Staff was unhygienic and conducted inappropriate conversations with other staff members in front of customers -Staff was uninformed -Half the menu was unavailable including cookings and pies -wait times are very long even when overstaffed and...

The lemon June 8th Tonight we arrived at your establishment at 7:15 with a party of 7 (4 adults, 1 teenager, and 2 toddlers). We were promptly greeted, ahead of us was a party of 6 who walked in at the same time we did . We were all sat relatively quickly. We ordered our drinks (1 kids milk, 1 apple juice, 2 Pepsi, 2 lemonade and 1 water with a lemon). The drinks come out everything is great, minus the fact we didn’t get the lemon, I ask politely “ma’am can we please get the lemon and more napkins”, the server wanders off returns with a stack of napkins and and doesn’t come back. I finally get her attention and ask for drink refills (I ask for a lemon again for the water) and she also gets our orders. We sit and wait and wait at this point she’s no where to be seen, most of drinks are empty again and the toddlers are starting to get restless. We look back and the 6 top table that came in at the same time as us is already eating and we continue to wait eventually she comes back and checks in on us at this point the 6 top has already left and we have been sitting with nothing but our drinks for an hour , I eventually say “is there any way we can just get the kids meal for now?” She goes and gets it pretty quickly and tells us only 15 min for the rest of the food, we say ok, I then ask for the lemon again, she just smiles and walks away. 30 additional mins go by and still no food but we can hear the kitchen staff chatting in the back that it would be 15 more minutes after we had waited 20 minutes already. We are hungry at this point, eventually the food comes out and it’s terrible. French toast undercooked, waffles burnt, black charcoal bacon, the food mad mediocre at best. Still no lemon! Then it comes time to pay… The waitress seeing we are clearly upset with everything says I’ll take 15 percent off to be nice we say cool, my wife goes up to pay, uses a 50 dollar gift card and then asks for an itemized receipt. The waitress wasn’t going to give the receipt and tried to say she already threw it away. My wife finally got the itemized receipt and comes back and starts looking it over something didn’t add up our bill was $122, we had a 50 gift card plus the 15% off but yet we paid ( after tip ) $110. So we do the math she didn’t add the 15% off as promised and added 20% gratuity (because we had a party of 7) and didn’t say anything at all and of course my wife goes up to get the bill fixed our waitress didn’t even help us. Another truly wonderful employee helped while she served her other tables, she stopped up front one time and asked if something was wrong. I mentioned the gratuity and she said it’s because you had a party of 7 and the other employee helping said he was told it was for parties of 8 or more. Just a little confusing… Maybe it’s just me but we had 2 toddlers in the party and one of them didn’t order a meal so gratuity seemed pretty excessive.. I did ask if there was a manager on duty at the time and there was not, left my phone number and name but not counting on a phone call with how the rest of the experience went. This place used to be fantastic but it has drastically gone down hill. 0/10 won’t...