Black Bear Diner Walnut Creek — Restaurant in Walnut Creek

Don't waste your time or $$ here!!Been Faithful customers for years. No complaints... Until our last visit 3 weeks ago(i didn't say anything) but absolutely TODAY WAS IT!! Not patronizing here any longer & am spreading the word. Something here has changed & for the worse? It's 4 P.M. We oredered 2 open faced Turkey dinners with 2 drinks & 1 soup. Got soup & was told OUT OF CRACKERS?? Waived down another waitress to get our muffin & refills. Food arrived QUICK. Too quick. The dressing was hard, matted & greasy looking (as seen in pics). The turkey was all broken up & looked "thrown together"? Usually it's sliced & presentable to the eye. When Manager Sue came over because we wanted to exchange the old Dressing for something more appealing like a side of vege's? Told NO on side of vegetables? ( i didn't ask for something crazy like a pie) instead I was told "No substitutes on this"? Well.. You'd think you'd make an exception! Managers reply to having no crackers was "she just found out about it & needed to go to the Safeway store!" The "fresh orders" of Dressing recieved was the exact same hard, greasy, crunchy stuff. 1 plate didn't get eaten & i ate 3/4 of my plate as we were hungry. It DIDN'T FAZE the server & cashier that we wouldn't be back. No one apologized. Asked what was wrong or what they could do to make us a return customer. Could care less attitudes. Plus it wasn't busy @ 4pm for the waitress to be as slow & non-responsive as she was. She was too busy giggling & being behind the counter with another girl. FYI FOLKS THERE'S A BRAND NEW RESTAURANT DOWN THE ROAD IN CONCORD THATS EXCELLENT & THE SERVICE IS SUPERB. IT'S CALLED "GOLDEN CORAL". They have OUR business now. Hope changes will soon follow at this Black Bear. I'm sure the supervisor/owner can tell a decline in numbers from previous years. Customers certainly can! This store needs major management overhauling & corporate...

So I haven't actually left reviews for anything I have a pretty high and low bar. And I'll start with maybe it's because of the time I decided to stop at this restaurant which was about 830 pm and the close at 10 to give them the benefit of the doubt. Staff was friendly. And this was for a group of 4, 2 adults 2 children.

First 2 drinks I asked for they were out of. (Ok things happen) Was served 2 sodas that was more carbonated water than a soda. 2 lemonades that were barely passing for lemon infused water. (I let lemonades slide my kids probably don't need the sugar lol) My replacement drink I asked for lemonade but they were out (now I understand how my kids drinks came out the way they did.) I was pretty much offered Dr. Pepper sprite or a diet soda. Well replacement drink had a similar issue but I left it alone.

I ordered a meatloaf which came with corn on the cob and mash potatoes with brown gravy. An orange on the side for a garnish and 2 onion rings on the meatloaf. Loved the onion rings. Meatloaf was ok. My mashed potatoes came out with biscuits and gravy type of gravy (i mean at least it had something just not what I expected.) My youngest ordered fruit as her side but took one bite and it wasn't good, my oldest tryed it and refused to eat any more as well(and it's their fav fruit too) I tryed it thinking it was kids being kids/apain lol. But to my surprise I also stopped after one bite.my oldest had a an issue with her fries this time I took her word for it. I ended up asking for boxes and a check. For those that may wonder why ask for boxes is cause I don't believe in waisting food unless it's physically bad for you. (Left the fruit)(leaving out a couple other issues as well) I just hope this serves as a basses of sort to improve on, I'd be willing to give it a second chance some time in the future as I've been to another location once last year and it was a...

Really awesome service and food at this Bear!

The restaurant is a converted dinner and the seating is a little small to accommodate enough people, but they do have regular tables in the back.

I wish I could remember the name of our server, she really deserves a lot of praise for the way she handled my poor sense of humour.

She asked me what kind of dressing I wanted for my salad, I said salad dressing, most servers would get confused as to what to do, but she brought me salad dressing on the side in case I didn't like it.

I also asked for the impossible rare end cut of prime rib, i was served a slice of end cut and a slice of rare prime rib, they also had full strength horse radish.

My wife ordered the chicken fried steak, I suggested the small portion since she doesn't eat very much, but asked the server to check with her, and the server brought the large one as she was asked to by my wife.

My daughter enjoyed a really awesome salad and didn't have to eat "kid food"

We were all delighted to have a fine dining experience for a nominal price, the food was service was exemplary!

We were there on the Saturday night before the super bowl, I really hope that someone figures out what our waitresses name is so that she can be rewarded for her fine attention to detail and awesome character!

It was amazing how she handled a freaky looking, 300lb high functioning maniac and his only slightly embarrassed high maintenance family.

The experience was absolutely fantastic and helped make the whole weekend one of the best that we've had since covid. We felt great ever since, everyone on the staff...