Black Bear Diner Katy — Restaurant in Katy

This review is regarding my experience at dinner time service on a Friday, April 12th, 2024. This was my second time going to this restaurant and although I do not remember being wowed the first time, it was good enough to be willing to return. That time I had breakfast for dinner and had no complaints. This time around, the restaurant and staff gave off the impression of a restaurant on its last legs.

First, when we arrived there was literally no one to greet us. There was a waitress kind of roaming around the restaurant, or leaning against the wall, on her phone who didn't even look at us, nor did she care we could see her on her phone. After a while, a waitress came out of the back and took us to a booth (albeit a dirty one we had to brush food off of before sitting down). She told us she was actually off the clock and going home, but thankfully was willing to help (obviously the other waitress didn't and there was no hostess to actually care). I am convinced no one would have sat us had she not come out. The restaurant was a ghost town. Our waitress, the only one of the two waitresses actually visible, took around 30 minutes to get to us even though there were only like 5 other tables with people in the restaurant. Hard to fault the only one doing anything but I felt like the majority of the time she had her back to us doing something at the window facing the kitchen (in fairness, the other waitress was probably assigned an empty section but being a former waiter myself she handled it poorly). We almost got up to leave but our waitress came just before we stood up. We should have left.

Aside from how long it took just to get served and get our food, the food was just bad. I originally wanted the tri tip dinner plate but the waitress suddenly stopped taking notes, said she would be back without saying anything else, and walked to the back without saying anything else. She eventually came back and she said that they were out of the tri tip, which was surprising considering how empty the place was and the menu highlights the tri tip as something to order. I ended up ordering the meat loaf and my friend ordered the chicken fried steak. We both had the white gravy. None of it was good. The gravy had a strange after taste to it and the chicken got over powered by it, which already was rather bland. My meatloaf was actually sweet, not what you would expect from a meatloaf. I couldn't finish it and for me that says a lot. The onion rings that came with it were soggy, the mashed potatoes with the white gravy were runny and even a little watery. The flavor was not worth the calories. The only thing that tasted good was the corn bread and my sweet potato fries.

Bad food, bad to non-existent service, and dirty booths. My friend said it is different for breakfast in the mornings on the weekends. Maybe that is when the varsity...

REVIEW ABOUT TAKE-OUT! Surprised to be righting this because when we dine in, we don't have issues that I recall. Thats why there's 2/ 5 stars. But it started when I ordered dinner ahead, from the site, for my fiancé and the kids since he had to work and it was a little late to go out to celebrate his birthday. I ordered online, from the parking lot at 8:23. The site asks for name, email, phone number, and of course credit card information. Completed that and estimated time to pick up was 8:43 (appx 20) minutes to prep the order. I didn't mind since my fiance ordered steak and eggs. I walk in about 8:45. I DID NOT LEAVE UNTIL ALMOST 9:25PM. I walked into the restaurant to pick up the food, I was told they were out of steaks. My first thought was, a phone number was asked for the order yet I didn't receive a call. Then when asked my my options were I had to wait 15 minutes to speak to a manager because they couldn't find him and all the while I had part of my order sitting in bags and just missing a steak. The manager said he can do a different meal and a dessert. I told him so how am I going to receive a refund seeing as how my steak meal was about $8 more than the replacement meal I had to get. He said that I could take a dessert since they run $5.99 and up. I politely declined the offer seeing as how I had a small cake for him in the car that was sitting there waiting. He said he'll do another meal and process a refund or price difference, I don't know. But when I asked him to also redo the eggs and hash browns on the ONE order so everything would be fresh at least for the birthday person, the manager looked at me confused as if that was a ridiculous request. I waited longer because I had already been there for 20 minutes now and what's 5 more for some chicken and Waffles, right?! WRONG! I had to wait more because he couldn't process the refund and kept getting an 'Error' message. I didn't get home until almost 9:45. When we finally sat down to have dinner, my son's food was blah but he was so hungry, he didn't care. I had fried cod and onion rings. The onion wings were not even a little bit crunchy and my fried cod was dry, and just tasted worse than frozen fish stick and my onion rings were basically soft and soggy. At least the birthday boys food was decent but he was still missing something that was suppose to come with the meal. So at the end of it all I left with food that was worse than a fast food restaurant, over charges on my card AND a horrible impression. I would never do...

Shared lunch here with my husband. We had tried the Black Bear while visiting Oklahoma & had a wonderful experience. Today not so much. I had the Taco salad. The advertisement doesn't do it justice! It was huge definitely something to share especially at lunch which would have been valuable information I would expect a server to share. Flavor was great overall the shell was bland & greasy. My poor husband choose the blackened salmon. It did not look blackened just colorless almost as if saturated. Very, very bland tasting & the bed of spinach very small and unappealing. He also had the sweet potato fries which were the only delicious part of his meal. Server was adequate, but up & down with her attitude seeming sometimes irritated other times really trying. Atmosphere is cute. The restaurant itself was too cold... 2/4/21 Update my husband took my son because of a coupn & they lived the fries & my son had the fish & chips which they both said was good. So we went back for a date. Really enjoyed it. Food was good service nice. HOWEVER, we took the fam for a birthday breakfast for my husband: it was awful. The service started off great but went downhill quickly. I ordered the bisquits it was awful. It was ridiculously big with so little gravy & the server stopped coming back after delivering our meals. My husband's eggs weren't good. Mine were cold by the time the sever came back. My daughter just wanted sind extra butter for her pancakes, but again it was cold by the time we got it. We decided to just get boxes and take our food home but gave up & left. Sadly, it wasn't even busy & I normally tip more than 20% especially on birthdays but today I begrudgingly gave 10%. And the servers really need to be trained on informing guests of the above average portion sizes. The picture doesn't do it justice; the plates are huge & the bottom pic is literally just the top of the bisquits from the top pic. And the tiny little plate in the background is what she gave me to transfer my food to with the one cup of gravy which was just enough to cover the bisquits top!!! So all in all the service & the food are sub standard &...