Black Bear Diner Sonoma — Restaurant in Sonoma

Best food since since arriving in California! Early February of this year, my husband & I decided to embark on a journey and explore the West Coast. We traveled North towards Eureka & Arcata, and now our adventure has us touring through the heart of Wine Country. We admire how all communities throughout the entire state are all avid supporters of farm fresh, local farms, grass fed & organic foods. Pro-healthy & Pro-economy! Great concept, HOWEVER, everything we have tried so far has seemed quite bland & lacking flavor. Forgive us as we mean no disrespect - Please just keep in mind that we come from a very highly populated, tourist & Snowbird beachtown in South Florida. A melting-pot of of people, backgrounds, unique spices & exotic recipes. Multi-cultural fusion food. We Floridians enjoy our food! We began to fear and question the culinary skills of the West- UNTIL we found the Black Bear Diner in Sonoma. We placed an order for carryout - we ordered Fish & Chips & Mikey's Chicken Pot Pie. WOW! Delicious! We shared both meals & neither one required salt, which has become quite customary for us. The Cod was light & flakey. The batter taste just like home. The Pot Pie's filo dough crust, was cooked to perfection, golden & buttery, with gravy seeping through the middle of the. My tastebuds were in flavor heaven. I had forgotten how GOOD food is supposed to taste. My tongue was doing cartwheels. My tummy was happy, my mouth was happy, I was happy, WE were happy. Thumbs-up & 5stars! Extra thanks to the staff in Sonoma. Great job! Keep up the...

My go-to spot when in Sonoma and want something yummy. As for the negative reviews, this is Sonoma, not New York. No one cares what experience you have had on the east coast. This is a DINER... not some bourgeois, hoity-toity, 5 star members only restaurant where Gwyneth Paltrow will personally prepare a truffled, pu-erh leaf dish infused with the tears of a Pegasus... a diner... that is what this place is and they do it well. I beleive it is California law where places have to have the caloric information on their menu's. Just because a biscuit in New York doesn't have the caloric information on it doesn't mean it is good for you. If this happens to be a problem for you, then I beleive the children's menu may be best for you, as it has tiny wittle portions good for a child or an adult with the body and physique of an 8 year old. Also the caloric information is available by request, i believe with that, so you can continue on with your life of living in denial. But I digress, I don't recall ever seeing a biscuit that is good for you... so don't order it if you like to fit your body into really tiny places such as shoe boxes, file cabinets, or Geo Metros, just a suggestion. So if you are hungry, and are trying to work off a buzz from all the wine tasting you have been doing, and you aren't full of yourself then you won't be disappointed here. This place is great for the WONDERFUL locals of Sonoma and for travelers alike. Also, don't insult the locals of Sonoma or call California "Cali"... it...

This review is solely based on service, their food is diner food and you get what you would expect. I'm a local and have been coming here since the place opened. The service has gone downhill year after year. They never seem to have enough staff so it's been difficult getting good service. I hardly visit here anymore because of this issue, I have enjoyed taking my kids here for a meal but I think yesterday (Friday the 23rd) was kinda the deal breaker especially after experiencing bad service for the last 3 years. We went around 6pm for dinner and there were 2 groups waiting in front and only half the restaurant was being used. We waited 15 minutes for any kind of acknowledgement and then the 2 groups ahead of us said they have been there for a while and they and they seemed frustrated that they have been waiting longer than we had. So, we finally all got a quick acknowledgement from a staff member saying that they were just too busy with phone orders so they pretty much could even sit us and continued to ignore us. At that point I took my family and walked out and went to Round Table Pizza. I felt that yet once again they couldn't staff properly and everyone (staff) always seems stressed out and they ignore the patrons. I don't expect high quality service at Black Bear but I do expect some type of service. If the owner or a manager reads this, please staff properly especially during a high traffic time. (Pretty sure they don't care enough...