Black Bear Diner Ogden — Restaurant in Ogden

This review is written solely representing this location only and not Black Bear Diner as a franchise. I have visited this location 3 times. The first time, the experience wasn't remarkably good or bad, and so I felt rather ok about the location. On the 2nd visit, my party was not noticed by our server for longer than 15 minutes after we were seated - it was not a busy day. Also, the same server failed to get our order right and practically forgot about our party. This was a bad experience, and I had to ask another employee for help getting my check to leave after waiting. My 3rd trip to this location started with asking to be seated, and the employee says ok, and then gets mildly distracted and sits a party of 2 (same as our party) who walked in behind us and did not ask to be seated before us (by the employee I just spoke with to be seated...). I confronted another employee who was seating people as well about this disrespect and was informed they were a part of a larger party... they were not - I watched them get seated together at their own private table. The "white lie" was just more disrespectful. I would rather have an apology than that. (I understand the host might not have realized this mix up exactly, but the obvious lie used to "clear it up"... not as easily forgivable because it was dismissive and felt like being gaslighted.) Upon leaving, both individuals were present at the desk to pay. I spoke with them directly about the incident and the lie, and they offered an apology at that point. I get that simple mistakes happen, but trying to placate me with a lie made me angry. The saving grace this last visit was an attentive server, our order was correct, and our food arrived suspiciously quickly, but at least that softened the blow (as a paying customer) from the negative experiences. 2 out of 3 visits with bad experiences make it hard to think about going back to a place with any positive motivation to do so - it's a battle between a 2 star and a 3 star review, but thanks to the server today I'll err on the side of forgiveness and give 3 stars. The issue at this location for me has been bad service.

edit Most 5 star reviews mention a waiting staff member by name. I smell bs about this location and tactics to get 5 star review.... I'm giving 1 star until this practice of coerced 5 star reviews stops... the idea of reviews is to be genuine, and there are frequent reviews regarding bad service which get buried by reviews - and some just say nothing more than Nikita... I've been approached by businesses in the past to write a 5 star review for a discount, or to mention an employees name in a review and they'll give me a perk or discount... I'm not buying the fake reviews, and you shouldn't either... My review is honest... this place needs better management for the service department with some honest ethics....

Follow-up edit: I reached out and emailed the manager as requested in this businesses response. They did not ever respond...

Ogden Utah Location December 25, 2024

this was my yelp review. We went in on Christmas morning about 8:50 am. We could see many empty tables but knew it would be busy. Our waitress was HORRIBLE. Blonde hair with a maroon top. Hostess sat our party of 3. Waitress took about 10 minutes to come to our table. Took our drink order and then disappeared. About 15 minutes later we asked another waitress to find out what happened to our waitress. We had been watching her the entire time talking to someone at the counter. She showed up about 5 minutes later with our drinks. She said that she was helping others, she wasnt, as we had been watching her the entire time talking with someone sitting at the counter. We ordered our food. It came out in about half time time of our drinks and then that was it. She didnt ask us for refills or if we needed or wanted anything else. She came back about 10 minutes later and brought our bill and said she wasnt trying to push us out but wanted to give us our bill. That was it. She waited on another table next to us, she was chatting and looking at pictures on their phone. Another table next to us who she also waited on, came in after us and received their food before we even received our drinks. It was very obvious she did not want to wait on our table. Little did she know, we had a $100 bill to offer as a tip for working on Christmas. The cashier asked about our experience and we let her know what horrible service it had been. We understood that it was Christmas and we knew that there would be a wait, but she made it very obvious that she did not want to wait on our table.

We are a mixed race family and I do believe that this played a part in it. We were in our christmas hoodies and very casual. I do believe that we were prejudged either for the race issue or for how we were dressed. We have been there numerous times and never had an experience like this. This was in the Ogden, Utah location. I did mention it to the cashier as we were checking out as she asked if we wanted to leave a tip. I expressed this to her and she offered a 10% discount. Again, we had a $100 bill to leave as a tip for waiting on us on Christmas morning. I will say that you have some of the best , upbeat waitresses and waiters. I am not sure what this girls issue was, but as mentioned above, she made it VERY clear that she did not want to wait on us and even felt pushed out the door. Im sure that if you looked at who worked that day it would be easy to figure out who this is. As someone that works for a multi million dollar company, you are only as good as your weakest employee. She is not the type of person I would want representing my company or organization. Hopefully this can be used as a learning experience but I am sure that if we were treated this way, i'm sure there are others out there that have just not expressed their concerns.

our waitress on Christmas Blonde Hair pulled up Small build Maroon...

Last update: we went today for my birthday. We spoke to our server Kyla and the manager Preston. They knew what was going on with the situation. We had GREAT service. We were checked on often to make sure that we were happy with everything. The best part, they took care of all of the customers the same way. No special treatment. Just great service. Definitely a much better experience!

Hopefully this is my last update. The manager Christy called and is the absolute best! She was so sweet, funny and genuine. We finally came to an agreement. I

another update. I decided to get the desserts to try as takeout. They had no idea what the i.o.u lost was but I played the voicemail. I was told I could get a total of $10 for BOTH TOTAL. They need better communication. I left with nothing and just considered it a loss.

I received a phone call from the manager. It went to my voicemail. I was offered 2 desserts and they they would put me on their I.O.U list. We spent almost $70 and they think $2 to $8 will show they care. They were WRONG. They offered 2 when there was 3 of us! No thank you! I'd rather go somewhere with good customer service.

I'll start with the good. Our waitress Katy was great. So sweet and so happy. That's the only good.

Now the worst. It took an HOUR to get our drink order. The hostess walked past us 13 times to talk to the cook. She stared at me, but didn't offer help. They never told the waitress we were there. We all ordered side salad. Only one was made. Once it was brought out, it had a whopping 1 cherry tomato and 2 slices of cucumbers and lettuce. We got our food. Out of 3 people, 1 was right. Our steak was not cooked right. The Santa Maria tri-tip was so tough it could not be cut with theirs knife. It took my husband's pocket knife to cut it. We were there a total of 2 hours for only 3 people. Numerous people, even large groups came in after us and left before us. We were charged the wrong amount and the hostess had the audacity to blame the waitress for being new. Disrespectful and inappropriate to talk down about someone who did great. I couldn't believe how awful our experience was. For $65, our experience should have...