Black Bear Diner

Decent food. Breakfast is the best. Lunch and dinner… Hit or miss. Poor quality of food unless it’s a waffle made fresh.
Decent service. Depends on the waiter. Cute restaurant but the food and service don’t live up to what you are expecting walking through the door.

I love going to this diner with my family on the weekends. its very family friendly.

This is our go to place. We had never heard of BB until we went to Monterey years ago. It has gotten better over the years. Looks like the staff has changed a lot. Our waitress was super funny & sweet. Our order was in and out. Everything tasted great. We went the same day and got two pies to go. Yummy they are amazing.

Great food and decent size portions along with that. Great service as well! I definitely recommend.

The best breakfast for the price close by our new place.
Service is always friendly, food has been delicious so far, and it’s always clean inside.
We’ve been here for breakfast three times so far, and have yet to be disappointed. The biggest reason I like this place is that every other breakfast place I have tried by our house has burnt or gross coffee. Black Bear’s coffee is consistently good, and they give good size mugs of it. The sweet cream pancakes are also delicious, and I love their country potatoes, with their house hot sauces. Yum! My husband likes the scrambles here.
Overall, a great place for breakfast, and you get a ton of food for a good price.
Sign up for the eclub and they send you a free coffee and bear claw coupon. They also sent a free birthday breakfast coupon this year. We went in yesterday to use the coupon and they even gave me a little birthday Black Bear stuffed animal. Such a nice touch from a great breakfast joint. We’ll be back to try other meals here!

One of the best Black Bear Diners I’ve been to: clean, pleasant, and quick service. The food was great– the music was holy, but that’s what you expect, haha.

Good, quality food. Broad menu with traditional diner food. Consistent quality and flavor. Good dessert menu. Clean atmosphere.

The big bear diner is always a good place to go. They have great breakfasts and great service. I love their Hobo Omelets which are chunk full of meat. They are very accommodating in customizing your order. Thanks Big Bear.

Location: it’s in Monterey haha nothing really cool to do around, but the dinner it’s self is really nice
Workers: we’re really good, weren’t rude and did their job. Also very nice
Food: I got eggs witch chicken trying to get my protein in. Will definitely be coming back their food was good and didn’t make me feel gross after
Tip: if you love chicken !! They have bomb ass chicken I also think they have wifi ! Ohh and they have a gift shop lol

This place is amazing, paws down. I had a grizzly appetite and I am beary happy we found this spot.
(Okay, okay I’ll stop.)
The whole restaurant is bear and mountain themed from the adorable wood carvings, to the bear pun signs, to even their own hot sauces and sweets available to take home. Seriously, all they need to add is the Bear Pride flag out front and it’s perfect.
Now the food is incredible. A fun menu «newspaper» offers all meal types from breakfast, lunch, and dinner and even smaller portion versions of some selections.
My mother and I both chose the Bear Claw French Toast. Get this, it’s not just a name, they have these giant bear claws and they dredge them in batter, fry it, pour icing on top and serve it along an orange twist with butter and maple syrup on the side, as if you needed either! I couldn’t finish mine! It was so filling!
Service here is friendly and helpful, and the restaurant is kept clean and tidy.
I’m eager to come back! You know, after I wake up from the food coma I’ll be hibernating from.

When the server gave us newspapers, I literally looked at my sister like «wtheck?!» It turns out that these one page newspapers were actually menus! HOW FREAKING CUTE, RIGHT?! Anyways, Black Bear Diner is basically your standard diner where you can order breakfast, lunch, and dinner all in one place. Since it’s one of the most reliable restaurants in Monterey, I’m giving Black Bear Diner a solid 3 stars only because our server went missing for literally 10 minutes after introducing himself with no explanation as to why he left. The food is pretty good!

I was at the Black Bear Diner at Father’s day. We had the best service ever thanks to Lan. She took great care of us during our visit. We have been to many Black Bear Diners throughout California and other locations and must say out of all of them we had the best time here in Monterey thanks to Lan and her wonderful smile. Our food was excellent and do recommend that the chef to add a little oil to the waffle batter to keep it crunchy. Keep up the good work and services and hope to stop by again real soon.
Roy.

All in all, it’s a dependable place for American comfort food.
It’s a diner so set your food expectations accordingly.
I’d never eaten at, much less heard of, the Black Bear Diner chain prior to July 2015 but I’m definitely a fan now and will rely on this place if there are no Norm’s Restaurants nearby. Actually, it may actually even be better. :P
I had the New York steak with onion rings and my gosh are the portions huge (leftovers!). I was NOT a fan of the green beans that came with it. The hot-​hot baked potato was humongous, and the steak and onion rings were just yummy. I believe a soup came with my entre for free.
Ambiance: There appears to be a forest/​woodsy theme throughout the restaurant with both outright statues of black bears (the namesake) and the wall having a log/​lumber-​like protrusions. OK for kids (there were MANY running around).
There’s even a mini section with black teddy bears being sold as souvenirs.
Kitschy, to say the least.

We had a lunch meeting in the private room. Group of eight. After waiting awhile, the first waiter insisted on taking only our drink orders though we were ready to order food and get going with our meeting and told him so.
10 minutes passed. We got our drinks and a different guy took our order.
20 minutes passed, then 3 plates came out. One was wrong. 3 more minutes and 3 more plates came out, everyone waited to start eating. Food was getting cold. Another 5 minutes passed and the final orders arrived.
I’d ordered breakfast — 2 eggs over medium, 2 strips of bacon and biscuits with gravy because after all it is a diner. Big mistake. I got this giant mound of what tasted like Bisquick with all this gelatinous goo that dripped on everything else on the plate. There was only one egg, not two and the bacon wasn’t even crispy.
The others at our table ordered sandwiches and burgers and seemed fine.
Then the bill came and the wait staff disappeared. We sat there waiting for another 15 minutes until finally we gave up and took it up to the register.
The place seemed clean enough and I didn’t get sick or anything but that’s probably because I didn’t eat that much.
Very cute collection of bears in the gift shop.
I don’t plan to return to this place.

Had a great experience from start to finish. Although we had to wait it was WORTH IT! Love the theme and it was carried throughout the restaurant. My kids enjoyed their experience. Food was great and the staff are very friendly. Come with an appetite because the portions are HUGE!!!

Great atmosphere, place, staff & food! Way better than Salinas, spacious and cleaner. Left a good impression for first time visit.
Ordered pot roast & taco salad.
Verdict: thumbs up! Food is bigger than expected.
Will be on my «to go» list!

I love Black Bear Diner and I always have a great meal and experience here. However, today I walked in and the jukebox was extremely loud. I asked the server, Rene, if he could turn the sound down a little. He said he would try and wasn’t able to, no biggie! Shortly after that I over heard Rene telling the manager, Anthony, that I requested to have the sound turned down and the Anthony started laughing and said «maybe we should take the jukebox out. Of course he stopped laughing when he turned And realized I heard him. A female waitress grabbed the remote and turned it down. Before I left, Anthony came to my table and denied he said anything and just then only heard anything about my request to turn the jukebox down.
As much as I love eating at the Black Bear Diner, I will not be back due to the rude and unprofessional management.

Went in for Dinner on a Sunday night. I see a ton of reviews for breakfast and I think that is probably the better part of this place.
Ordered the chicken fried steak and it was just ok, nothing special. The white gravy was very good. The mixed veggies that came with it were not very good, the mashed red potatoes were very solid also.
Chicken noodle soup was luke warm but did have some good flavor. The cornbread muffin I took one bite and was done, not worth the stomach space.
Service was pretty good, the place was relatively empty and the lady was working her tail off. So Kudos there.
All in all, as a dinner place, it is just ok, nothing to run down to.

Overall great! Very busy day so service was sketchy but won’t hold it against them. All orders were right just took some time to get their attention.
Food was very good and prices were right. My husband had the «Grizz» breakfast which was an enormous amount of food and all delicious. The sausage was just the way I like it.
Me, my stepson, and his wife all got different burgers. All were delicious. His was Huge!
Grand daughter got the chicken strips and liked them and the fries. She really loved grandpa’s pancakes.
Bill for all was $ 65 which is totally reasonable. Would definitely come back.

I’ve had great service at Black Bear and bad service at Black Bear.
The food is usually exactly the same, the biscuits fluffy, the bacon crisp. The only thing they tend to do wrong are the potatoes. Which they leave almost raw on a regular basis.
This place is always slammed almost all morning hours of the weekend, so plan accordingly and stop in early because you will usually be in for a wait.
The biggest issue in my book at Black Bear is the service, it’s not especially quick or on point with check ins for extra items. You’re left trying to flag down people, most of whom are in the kitchenette side area they have.
But beyond certain aspects of the service, it’s a nice little Monterey Breakfast spot.