The Gold Pan And Nugget Room Lounge

This place is closed. 12/​18/​2015
It is for sale. Some one please purchase we need another place in Fawnskin to eat

This place is exactly what we expected it to be. The folks here are as nice as can be and very welcoming. We found their ad in the local visitors guide for Big Bear. We looked up them up on Unilocal and found so so reviews. We decided to give this place a chance anyways and we’re glad we did. The breakfast was hot and delicious. Our coffee was always filled to the top with a smile and conversation. We definitely recommend this place for the décor, ambiance, and food.

I don’t know what else to say except I LOVE THIS PLACE! This is EXACTLY the type of place I try to eat at when I travel to a small town. THESE are the people I was hoping to meet while on vacation. Home cooked food that makes you remember spending summer vacations at Grandmas house. Nostalgia that doesn’t exist anymore. A restaurant that’s been here for 50 years? Where else do you find that? Is it old?.. Yes. Does it smell old?.. Yes. Did you not notice the CHARCOAL FAN on the ceiling? DUH? Must have at one time been a smoking restaurant/​bar. I love this place. I love the history of big bear and surrounding towns. This is one of the little gems I look for while on vacation. Mom and Pop shops where they’ll drag over a chair if not busy and chat with you. Definitely on my Favorites List. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

I’m not sure why this place has bad reviews. Yeah it is not a very high class place but a very down-​to-​earth, non-​pretentious place. It kinda has a really old restaurant feel but the food is great and the service was really nice. We were the only customers and the server was very attentive and chit chatted with us a bit. The breakfast was pretty cheap and just what we needed before going canoeing in the lake!!!

STRAIGHT UP OUT OF A HORROR MOVIE.
Ok, so this is kind of like a place you end up in by accident. I had remembered seeing a brewery on the North Shore a while back, so we drove over to check it out and to see if it was open. It was not, and we came upon the cool-​looking, kinda abandoned looking white building that the Gold Pan is next to. I guess maybe that should have been our clue that this place was going to be super awkward and awful, but once we walked in and they seated us, we realized it was gross and dirty and kinda smelly in there, but we felt it would be really rude to leave. So we stuck it out. The «décor» is really strange, it looks like stuff has been on the walls in there since 1972 and they’ve never cleaned or dusted it. You could also tell that people had smoked inside that place for like at least the 50 years prior. So, we were seated by this scary looking dude with dirty hands and definitely looked like he was on drugs. He ended up waiting in us, too and we definitely saw the mean old lady that works behind the bar that everyone talks about. She kept going outside to smoke and all the smoke was coming right in the door and right into our lungs. Gross.
Anyway, we really just wanted some onion rings, because we were like, ok, let’s rder something easy and quick so we can be out of here, and of course they were out. I did try the chili, it really was good to be honest, but I couldn’t really enjoy it because I couldn’t stop looking at the dirty table next to us. Looked like the remnants of dinner from the night before and they just never cleaned off the table. The food and cups and plates were all still there, and there was NO ONE in there, they definitely were just being super lazy, or doing meth in the back or whatever. Oh, and it was SUPER quiet in there, no music on, no tvs or anything (or the volume wasn’t on), and it was SOOO AWKWARD because I felt like they were judging us and were like, actually annoyed we were in there.
Also, I almost died when a waitress (who I didn’t see when we walked in) came up behind me and asked if we needed anything and she was in a WHEELCHAIR. like, not because she was handicapped, but she like hurt her foot or something and legit was working rolling around in a manual wheelchair serving people. Like, wtf?
So, definitely stay away from this place. It’s gross, the food is gross, the people are mean and it’s dirty.

Stay far far away from this place as I am convinced the old lady purposely poisoned our food!!!
We were in Big Bear over Labor Day and decided to grab some lunch before heading back to Lake Arrowhead. It was a fairly big group of us (8) so we had to sit at the table in the bar area to accomodate all of us.
The old lady who works behind the bar was very rude right from the start and maintained the rude behavior for the entire meal. We are a very mellow and considerate group and never gave her a reason to act that way. Based on other reviews on here it just sounds like she is that way all the time.
We all wanted to get milk shakes which really upset the old lady as she said she would have to make them all. When they arrived she «mistakenly» made one too many which I proceeded to share with a friend. We both got very sick about 5 minutes after our meal and ended up being sick for the rest of the day and part of the next. I am convinced that old lady put something in that shake to make us sick as we both had different meals.
So do yourself a favor and stay as far away from this place and that angry old lady as you possibly can!!!

omg this place only gets one star because i have to give it something!!! the service was the worst. she tried to tell me i was ordering too much for my children. i dont care if they eat it all i wanted them to eat something healthy! then i ordered the french toast… how can you fail at french toast i ask? well let me tell you: it tasted like fish because it was fried in canola oil!!! i vomited it back up before i paid. i should have wiped my butt with $ 25 before going inside and skiped breakfast. do not eat here. your better off starving. thanks to them i dont think i can eat french toast for the next 10 years. on the lighter note, the waiter liked my jeep… this place should burn!!!

My my motorcycle riding buddy and I stopped here by happenstance. The place I had intended to go was next door and out of business.
The place as pretty clean and had a bar off into another little cove. There aas nothing special about it, but it did look like the locals hung around here.
The waitress, a little old lady, was somewhat slow, and I wasn’t in a gigantic rush anyway. She was very nice.
We looked at our menus and they had a lot of chili dishes on there, omelets, bowls, and sandwiches. Now being a chili fan I picked one to order, only too be told they were out of chili and wouldn’t be making any until «tomorrow», which was Friday.
Kinda had to ask myself, how often do they make chile? Is this a daily, deal, kinda obviously not. Weekly?
At any rate, I ordered a Mexican Hat, because I had never heard of one. It was sliced beef and cheese on toast with salsa on the side for dipping. Kind of a Mexican Beef Dip. I put the salsa and the dill chips on the sandwich and it as quite good. They also had a nice listing of Ice Cream drinks, so I figured I would try a chocolate malt. Good Chocolate malts are very hard to find in SoCal, usually made with that soft serve crap. This one was advertised as Old fashioned, so I took the chance. Was not a mistake, it was great!
The french fries were good, and my friend liked his hamburger.
I would go back if I get up there again.

The place is dark. cold and the chairs were without comfort. The menu was average. Nothing of note over and above the standard fare you see anywhere else. I had a club sandwich which, technically, was a club sandwich, but was not impressive sorry to say. I had a bag of potto chips with it because I was told the fryer was not working, precluding the availability of french fries. Just as well. On the positive side, the waitress was friendly and it did not take long. I would not return, however, as it just wasn’t up to par with what I am used to.

This place is the bar away from home it is really cozy here remember it is a small town everything is slow moving but when you are in Fawnskin that’s the way it should be slow all and all I love this place

Horrible service. Lackluster food.

Very quiet during the week. The food was very good. The waiter recommended the roast beef dishes since the roast was fresh out of the oven. I ordered the Mexican Joe which was very good. One of the others in my party order the roast beef au jus and he said it was very good. The third in our party ordered 3 hotcakes — very good and huge. Overall we were very happy with our meals and would definitely eat there again.

Gee, I read the other reviews and I’m being charitable here. Here goes it.
Actually, the food was quite decent. We had a large party and service was a little slow, but got the job done. Pancakes took up the entire plate and were fluffy, good texture and taste. My Denver Omlette wasn’t exactly aesthetically good looking, to the taste though, it was evenly seasoned and pleasing. We all liked our toast. Sausage patty mustve been mutton or something; it had a gamey taste while spruced up with spices.
Our server was not liking us all too much because we kept ordering food, and had certain requests. Kinda rude w/​a ‘tude. I dont understand; its a large order, you can’t control the amount in a party, what they’re going to order– and you’ll likely score a good tip. Enjoy the windfall and save us the grief. BTW, we gave a good tip and she even took $ 5 off the bill for ringing it up wrong. That brings it to a 3!

I hate to give bad reviews of businesses, after all they’re trying to make a living doing their job. But when a job is done poorly it leaves a permanent memory that cannot be undone. This is my dining experience and it definitely does not go without a story. Sometime last year in 2006 some friends and family came up to visit me. I wanted to show them the good activities Big Bear had to offer in addition to some great places to go eat. The morning of their departure, my buddy went to go and get some donuts or pastries for breakfast. I urged him to turn back because I had a great place to go eat breakfast. North Shore Café was the place we would eat.
Once there, I noticed it was unusually crowded so I put my name in and was told it would be around 10 minutes. The waitresses recognized me so I knew the wait would be less as I eyed the table we would be seated at. The friend who went AWOL to get donuts must have thought 10 minutes was too long so he went to the place a few buildings down, called The Nugget Room. You can’t miss the sign, as it looks like an old time gambling parlor.
With much stress and anger I reluctantly conceeded to this. As mentioned in other reviews, my loyalty is fierce when I find a good restaurant. Enter The Nugget Room… a seedy dive that is more of a bar than it is a restaurant. The first thing I noticed was smell of stale beer, wafting through the air as I entered through the door. As we all sat down I noticed the rickety chairs and the sticky table — probably from a spilt pitcher the night before. A wave of unease swept over me. I wanted to get up and go claim my table at North Shore but I had to go through it. It’s the restaurant search. A rite of passage. I would announce the results on a review site like this one. I would tell the world about this place. Next, our waiter showed up looking like he was up all night doing coke or meth, he had that look to him. A look of sleep deprivation, laced with jittery nerves and sketchy eyes. So he handed us our menus and disappeared to fetch our waters. It’s one of those places where you can open the menu and know exactly what kind of food you’re going to get. With not much to choose from, I kept it simple and ordered the two fried eggs, hashbrowns well done, and sourdough toast. Everyone else ordered their food and watched as out waiter went to get our food. With my head in my hands and a scowl on my face, my cousin started cracking jokes and that helped curb the wrenching in my gut. Could this place get any worse? I was sincerely scared at what my food would show up looking like.
About 15 – 20 minutes later, our waiter shows up and begins serving us. To go with the tone of the day, I was served last. The simplest meal — served last. I was shocked at what I was looking at. I had never been served portions so small in all my years of restaurant dining. My toast was so small it looked like they used the tiny heels off a used up sourdough round. My eggs were overcooked, and my hashbrowns looked like they were from a bag of frozen Ore-Ida’s. You would think they would load up the hashbrowns to make up for the minature toast. No way. Imagine a 4 inch round of lightly cooked frozen hashbrowns from the local freezer section and thats what I got. I looked at my cousin and started laughing out loud. It took no more than 10 bites and I was finished with my breakfast. It was the worst breakfast ever!
If you are looking for a good hearty breakfast with variety, do not go here. But if you are looking for something questionable and you don’t care what goes into your body or what it tastes like, try it out for yourself. Or better yet, go to IHop or Denny’s. The bottom line is this…
No matter what I choose as words, there is no way to polish a turd.