Black Bear Diner Mt. Shasta — Restaurant in Mount Shasta

Wow.. I’m not even sure where to start. Apparently our waitress tonight was new, but I’m not sure that is a good enough excuse as for how awful the experience was. After we were seated, we ordered our drinks.. a raspberry lemonade and an Arnold Palmer. She didn’t know what an Arnold Palmer was, her coworker had to explain it to her.. we ordered a tri tip dip deluxe with no onions and a western burger. It was about 30 minutes before we could get her attention to ask why we hadn’t received our drinks. She then brought us the drinks.. a raspberry TEA and an Arnold Palmer. When she brought our food I asked her for the raspberry lemonade that I ordered (which I ordered because they we’re out of the advertised huckleberry lemonade). I bit into my tri tip dip and there were onions all on it. (I know a lot of people love onions, but they make me sick). The western burger was a strange one. It came with lettuce, pickles, chopped red onions, which I don’t believe belong on a burger with onion rings and barbecue sauce. The fries were the only thing that we’re okay. Then I asked for ranch. I was brought back what tasted like bleu cheese and when I asked for regular ranch, I was informed that the only kind of ranch they had was ranch with onion and bacon chunks in it. I have never at any other visit to a black bear diner had a problem with the ranch. So not only did she mess up our order, there were three other tables around us in which she managed to mess every order up. She even gave food to the wrong table, and when informed after she came back a few minutes later, she tried to grab the plates off of the wrong table and put them on the right table, in which the customers told her to have a new plate made because it was contaminated by the other customers, which ended up being an awkward situation between customers.. but hello?? Cross-contamination. All of the people at the other tables were so upset by her service and pure ignorance of what it means to be a server. I was a little irritated at this point, but was trying to be understanding because it was only her second day. After we got our food we asked for a banana split to go. As we were finishing our food she came by offering all of the tables a free ice cream. She got to our table and asked if we wanted a free ice cream, and I said ”I just want the banana split I ordered” and she said “oh that’s right a banana split” I did ask if we could get it on the house because we had already paid and she agreed. 10 minutes went by and she walked past us and said “oh I’ll get your banana split” I said “please make sure it’s to go” she said “oh you want it to go, ok” 😑 she finally brought us the banana split as were we’re getting up to leave and apologized a bunch. But the icing on the cake was when we got in the car and I opened the banana split, and I took a bite I almost threw up. 🤢 The banana was completely brown underneath the ice cream and whip cream. I live here locally and have eaten at this restaurant, and other black bear locations quite a few times, and this was the worst...

So I normally try to give a restaurant and employees some leeway, as a former server, cook and manager of several different restaurants. However I'm just very disappointed I've visited this Black Bear twice in the last month both times around 130 in the afternoon. My first experience I ordered the turkey club my husband the volcano breakfast, our waitress was trying to be kind but was very forgetful when we could actually get her attention. My sandwich was brought out without the fries she said if I didn't get them in the next few minutes to remind her to get them. Well again couldn't get her attention and I finally had to ask another server who went to check right away as I was almost done with my sandwich at this point, the original server came back and apologized but she apparently misunderstood the kitchen was cleaning the fryer which I have never in all my years Heard of cleaning in the middle of a lunch shift so I then received very greasy fries that I couldn't eat because the oil was obviously not heated to the proper temp before adding frozen cold fries. I was offered an apology and at this point told the server to just remove the cost of the fries please paid my bill and left. Then today decided to give them one more try, roughly same time. We were greeted and sat at a table immediately we hear the older couple ask to turn the air down slightly hearing the servers response " well it's 100 degrees outside so we need the air on" it was 79 at the time. I know how hot it gets being a server but this was the rudest response I've ever heard. It wasn't until the server saw the woman got up to go out to her car for a jacket then she changed her tune offering to seat them somewhere else or actually lower the temp. Unfortunately my understanding of black Bear dinner experience has a huge fail I don't think this waitress was to thrilled about being at work let alone trying to create an inviting experience . As I looked at my husband I told him if she's our waitress I'm getting up and leaving. Thank God she wasn't our waiter was very pleasant and did so a great job however the food again was a bit of the problem my California Benedict did not have avocado my husband and I both ordered crispy hash browns which were completely raw inside we both had bacon which was undercooked as well and my husband's pancakes had a very strange taste to them and again weren't fully cooked. So at the end of it all I think we will not be going back I honestly don't really know what is going on with the restaurant it used to be really good even the Redding location has lost its family atmosphere. I hope there can be some changes made and we may try it again but for now we...

We've always counted on BBD to provide great food and an overall great experience -- mostly while traveling, but also during our winter stays in the Chandler AZ area. Tonight we were not able to dine in-person at the Mt Shasta restaurant, even though we were a short walk away, so we ordered through DoorDash. We were given an expected delivery time of about 20 minutes, and during that time we received notification that the dasher had arrived to pick up the order. About 30 minutes after ordering, we got a message from the dasher that he was still waiting for the order to be ready. After another 30 minutes -- an hour in total, so far -- the dasher called us because he had JUST been told that one of our items was not available., and we gave him a permissible substitution. After another half-hour -- now a bit over 90 minutes altogether -- we still had nothing. I called the BBD manager and was told they'd "been swamped" but that all their DoorDash orders had been picked up. And in fact, in the order tracking on the DD website, I was able to see that the dasher had JUST left the restaurant, and he arrived at our nearby hotel just a few minutes later. Besides us ending up with cold, unappetizing food, the unfortunate dasher lost over 90 minutes of his time during which he could have been earning money making other deliveries. THIS IS NOT THE STANDARD OF SERVICE THAT BLACK BEAR DINER IS KNOWN FOR. If the restaurant is unable to keep up with on-site customers and online orders, they need to stop accepting online orders instead of aggravating customers with lengthy delays and cold food; I have to believe their in-store customers were receiving sub-par service as well. If the store can't keep up with orders, they need to go "offline" with their services like DoorDash and not accept orders. (Your store manager said she had no way to do that, but I know that to be false. She also suggested that the dasher had long since picked up the order, but I could see from the online tracking that he was on-site at the store the entire time, and I doubt he was just sitting there enjoying a meal...