Brown Bear — Restaurant in Shelby Township

(Warning: Review contains Sexual Content for Adults 18 and Over)

Spouse and I went to Upstate for the Oyster Happy Hour last week and I just have to relay my experience. It. Only. Gets. Better. It's fair to say that we were eating sex. Eyes were rolling all over, we were so in it.

Foreplay: The dozen happy hour oysters. Delicious as always. Fresh, light, luscious and just opened our palate for the next round.

Build Up: The calamari and kale salad, which is tried, tested and delicious with that hint of honey and marble slab. But this time, we added a new dish to our repertoire... the crab cakes! OMFG. First, you bite into the lump crab and take a bite of the greens laced with sweet honey and then BAM the heat of the habanero hits you... and then back to that sweet honey.

Climax: Now that you are sufficiently prepped, the fettuccini with clams comes out (Spouse and I like to share it out of the same bowl). Whatever is in there... the shallots, butter, cream, cheese, huge clams, slippery fettucini... it will end you. It's simply over the top decadent and it just takes you there. This is probably why they don't have a dessert menu. They give you complimentary small slivers of pound cake with the check - which I basically ignore because I want the tastes in my...

Awful! Third time we’ve been here. First time was great, second time just ok, on Sat July 13th we left and won’t be back. There at 1pm not busy at all. My husband and I ordered our burgers well done, mine came medium and his olive burger was still raw inside. The waitress was very apologetic and sent them both back. I heard a microwave door slam and told my husband “they’re not redoing them”. I was hopeful after we sat there for another half hour - long enough for fresh burgers. The waitress came back and said “I’ve asked them to put down fresh fries for you, it’ll be just a minute more”. I looked down at our plates and there were our original burgers we had cut in half, cheese nuked to oblivion. My husband’s bun was even on backwards. The waitress took the bill to another girl asking to have the burgers removed from the bill, she just looked at us. Not sure if she was the manager or not. We paid the $3.25 for my husband’s pop which he barely drank and left. Went to Hanson foods and for $9 bought hamburger meat and buns and went home and made three burgers on the grill. We spent an hour and a half at the Brown Bear waiting patiently. With only a 33% positive track record in our experience we won’t be back....

We visited the Brown Bear after a long day at Michigan's Adventure amusement park. We rented a place nearby and not knowing the area quickly realized there's not much in the way of food around. Especially at 10:30pm. I called the BB and they said they were open until 11pm so we headed over from New Era.

Upon arrival I was a little concerned, it looked to me more of a dive bar than a restaurant. We had 12 in our party 7 of which were children. But they welcomed us in and took our order. As the menu indicated the burgers are what they are famous for so most of us had a variation of the BB burger.

Once delivered we all shared notes on how they were, turns out they were great! Everyone’s was cooked to perfection and they tasted amazing. A couple of us got some of the odder toppings and they too were great. Even the kids that got chicken strips or quesadillas were happy. All in all we couldn't have asked for better food. They were also very quick and super friendly. I really expected to get some attitude about all the kids and ordering late at night but they thanked us repeatedly for stopping in and offered us anything else we might want.

I would highly recommend the Brown Bear, great burgers...