Black Bear Diner Morris — Restaurant in Saratoga Township

Today, the 4th of July, my wife and I decided to eat at the Black Bear Diner. I do a lot of Google reviews on restaurants and other places I go to. I always strive to be as fair and accurate as possible. That being said, here I go. When we walked through the doorway, we were greeted by a hostess. She was pleasant and professional. She told me that the wait time was 15 to 20 minutes. I looked into the dining area and saw a lot of unoccupied tables. Seeing my gaze, the hostess explained that last Saturday they had seated everyone as they came in. Because it became crowded, the waiting time for getting served food was up to an hour. That was because the kitchen staff became overwhelmed and couldn't keep up. As a result, the restaurant ended up comping a lot of meals. To avoid a repeat, the hostess explained, they decided to keep a portion of the seats vacant. This vacant seat policy left approximately, by my count, 20 people standing, waiting for a table. There was insufficient seating for the pre-diners to sit. I asked the hostess if my wife and I could sit at one of the vacant dining tables while we waited for my name to be called from the waiting list. The hostess told me she couldn't allow that because she might need the table to seat a diner. After being refused, I counted the empty and occupied seats. My count isn't completely accurate because there was a lot of activity and I might have been off a number or two or three. Regardless, I counted 20 empty tables and 13 occupied tables. Again, my count wasn't exact, but it was clear to me that a majority of the tables were being kept unoccupied. Finally, my wife and I were seated. We both ordered the chicken fried steak. For the two sides that came with the meal, I ordered onion rings and a cup of cole slaw. My meal also came with a cup of cheese and broccoli soup. My wife ordered french fries and a salad. My wife's salad was fresh, crispy and delicious. Her french fries were average. My soup was not great. My onion rings and cole slaw were delicious. On the menu, the chicken fried steak was described as being "smothered in country gravy". It should have been described as covered in a couple of small scoops of country gravy. (See attached photo). It most certainly wasn't smothered! Nevertheless, it was flavorful. The wait staff were attentive, efficient and courteous. The prices were reasonable. The Black Bear Diner website states that there are 264 diners in 14 states. The new Morris, Illinois Black Bear Diner management should have ensured there was adequate kitchen staff to handle a full complement of diners. I can think of no good excuse for this failing. In conclusion, both my wife and I are senior citizens, although, she looks as young as the day we married, many years ago. I have no desire to stand in line for a half hour or more, waiting for a dining table. There are too many other great restaurants in the area where we can be seated as soon as we walk through the doorway. I doubt we'll go back to the...

I’ve been incredibly excited to stop in since they’ve opened and was highly disappointed

I brought a friend with me around 1 PM on a weekday thinking it was going to be a wonderful experience

Walking into the restaurant, I was greeted with a very happy and loud welcoming. I thought to myself this is going to be delightful.

And then we met our waitress absolutely no customer service at all no smile no welcome only a face that looked like we were there bothering her For being 1 o’clock in the afternoon, only one soup was ready and it was definitely leftovers from the day prior I wouldn’t have gave it to a dog, there was maybe one or two other diners in the restaurant so they could not blame it on being busy which should’ve been a red flag we both had ordered the Bigfoot country fried steak and yes, it came out within five minutes magically, but it was ice cold and absolutely no flavor at all. You couldn’t even taste any salt or pepper. We did not eat any of it. My green beans had more stems in them than green beans We put it in boxes and fed them to the garbage can outside There’s just no love or care put into this food or customer service whatsoever I am by no means a picky person but this was disappointing and if that was not bad enough Another woman came through and was literally sweeping the same spot directly next to me for at least 15 minutes. She did nothing but sweep and sweep the same spot on the floor that was already very clean. I can say. But if there are people trying to dine, I wouldn’t suggest doing things like this. I have ran restaurants for many many years. It was almost like there was no management on duty just a bunch of people that did not care.

It saddens me because I grew up going here all of my life when it was RPlace I was really looking forward to enjoying a new spot, but I will never return to this location and I will not suggest any of my customers, family or friends to waste their time or money there are delightful places very close by with wonderful customer service and food worth eating

$60 for two country fried steaks and a...

I ended up getting food poisoning from here, and the manager was defensive, and negligent.

I had family bring me home food. I called the restaurant, and spoke with the manager. I think his name was Gil (I could be wrong on his name). When I called in I mentioned that I got sick from the food, and that I'm only mentioning this for them to check their kitchen to prevent this from happening to anyone else. The manager immediately got defensive stating that they had nothing to do with my food poisoning, and it was from something else. All I asked was to check for cross contamination, and how the food is being stored. He argued with me about that too. He said that I was the only one that got sick, and that it wasn't from his restaurant. I mentioned that my dog also got sick like I did within an hour of eating the food. He didn't have much to say other than that it wasn't from them. I missed 2 days of work because of this place not being responsible for the food that came out of their kitchen.

Personally I feel that if someone makes an accusation like that then your responsibility as a manager is to AT LEAST look into it, and double check your kitchen.

I later found out that a relative got sick from their food as well that same night. We hadn't seen that relative in over 3 weeks so it wasn't a stomach bug or anything contagious.

Also, a friend of a friend went there and they had food that arrived to the table raw in the middle. They ended up just remaking them to go. From what I understood that person was not satisfied with how the restaurant handled the situation.

I know it's exciting going to a new restaurant in town, and you want to support them but I promise you that you are better off not going to the Black Bear diner. Management doesn't take responsibility for getting people sick or bringing undercooked food to the table. The way management dealt with the situation left me speechless. I have never experienced something like this at a restaurant. This by far was the worst experience that I have ever had with...