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Black Bear Saloon
Rating Details »
Categories: Sports Bars, American (Traditional) [Edit]
124 Temple StNew Haven, CT 06510
(203) 562-2327
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Music:
- DJ
- Best Nights:
- Thu, Fri, Sat
- Happy Hour:
- Yes
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- No
- Coat Check:
- No
15 reviews for Black Bear Saloon
It may not be obvious, but don't order the food here. As nice as the booths are with the tv's in them, I'm sure the food sucks because this is a crappy, no character 'Chili's' or 'Fridays' type place - but without the quality control of those chains... No, I haven't eaten here, but I just wouldn't.
That said this is a nice place to grab a pint if you brought your own company and need nothing more than a place to drink and talk, they have some okay stuff on tap and bar specials. I like the u-f-o hef they have right now. The music is the horrendous hip-hop kind where the sweat goes down someone's balls and all these females crawl.
Nonetheless, while the service is good, the staff is encouraged to dress as skimpy as possible and flirt loudly with the overweight lovers who come in for the attention. Yea, I'm overweight, too - but what are they selling in there? I think it might be flirtatious attention with a hint of short-shorts over 'Go Shorty, It's your birthday' and a wrestling match. .
-5 Stars.
I ordered a Goose and Tonic. Got Rail and Tonic. Went to another bartender, ordered same, because I missed the pour on the first. Again, RAIL and tonic, watched her pour from a Goose bottle.
Businesses like this make me sick. Literally. This place is trash.
Lame. Black Bear is where you go when you want to wait 20 minutes for a drink, not be able to hear what you or your friends are saying, and try to dance while being surrounded by really gross, sweaty popped collar d-bags--in other words, its where you go when you're an underage girl and you don't know any better. Lame.
The only redeeming qualities of this place are its televisions, Buck Hunter and Bass on tap.
The turkey burger was edible, my cheeseburger was awful, and the buffalo wings were more like buffalo bones.
This is basically a TGI Fridays without the flair. I think my BBQ pulled pork sandwich was cold and may have been soaked in spaghetti sauce. The fries were cold. The chips and salsa were pretty clearly dumped out of a bag and a jar.
The service wasn't very good....we were not checked on and it was to loud for the time of night it was. It was just to early to be that loud in there.
The amount of food for the price was not even close to enough. With Buffalo Wild Wings right down the street you would think they would try a little better to match or be better then a sports bar.
What sucked is that i have heard it was good and i was let down!
Depends on who you are, but I loathe this place. It's too noisy- you can tell their strategy is just to make conversation impossible so you end up buying more drinks. It has no character- Of course, it's a chain establishment. I'm not into the crowd- meathead guys and the girls that love them. So all in all I could see this bar being perfect for a lot of mall hopping suburbanites, but I will steer clear.
PS- Amazing, you can now also visit Black Bear at the CT Post Mall in Milford. How convenient!
It pains me to give this place 3 stars but there isn't a better place to watch sports in New Haven. Especially Sunday Football. It's loud and crazy but that's the point.
Besides the cute blonde bartender that keeps her bottle opener tucked in her tight pants pressed against her sweaty hip (hey, is that safe...?) the service here is horrible. If you DON"T have a personality and want to wait tables at a snails pace apply for a job here.
The food is average to below average. You'll be safe with a sandwhich but don't order a burger here. Wings = awful. And even though this place claims that one of the house specials are the sliders they are more bun than burger and what little burger there is is god awful.
There is no reason Black Bear should be as loud as it is, and it is a bad sign when karaoke night is the most aurally pleasing a place gets. Conversation is a struggle. The layout is also inconvenient, with a divider between the bar and the tables that inevitably results in overcrowding at the bar and cramped socializing around it. I've also had at least one terrible service experience, where I received a screwdriver in a leaky cup, lost half of it before I could grab another cup to nest it in, and was not only unaided and uncomped by the bartender inches away, but told that they were all out of orange juice when I tried to order a new one. Not cool, Black Bear.
A Burger joint which has some drinks and other food for non-burger eaters. What else do you want? This place is just that. Its an american restaurant/bar kind of a place. The service is always cordial (i've been there twice) and the place is reasonably filled for lunch.
The food is average at best and their prices are reasonable. Generally, there's so much to write about a place, but there's nothing outstandingly good/bad about this place so I end my review here :)
I would like to give this place 2.5 stars, but since I can't I will be on the generous side. This place seems like a typical chain restaurant. The food was average. Inside it was very loud....between the music, TVs and people. IMO the food and drinks are overpriced for what you get. This place is just OK.
Five bear claws for the amount of televisions here. If you want to watch sports, there isn't a better bar in the downtown area (they win by default, basically).
Four bear claws for replacing Neat Lounge. That bar sucked an egg.
Three bear claws for the decor. It's all wood, it looks clean and nice, and the layout ain't bad.
Two bear claws for their happy hour specials. Nothing spectacular, but they do have deals on food which can be appealing if you want a cheap bite to eat and a frosty beverage or two while watching said sporting event.
One bear claw for the crowdedness on weekends. I'm sure it will die down at some point, but for now this place can get kind of annoying. It's really one of the only few "hangout" bars downtown, so I wish it was a place where I could, you know, hang out.
One big bear bite right to the ass for the quality of their sliders. Their mini-burgers are $1 each on Tuesday nights, but they taste like sliced hockey puck boiled in water. If you don't care about flavor in your food (I do) then you can fill your belly with these, I suppose.
This place did not excite me and it is doubtful I will ever go back.
This bar has a somewhat unique atmosphere. It's new looking; all the surfaces seem shiny and pristine, and it's brighter than most bars with wood surfaces. It's also very open, with very high ceilings. Although there's plenty of space in the restaurant/seating area, the bar area is much smaller and can become very cramped. For such an open room, having such a cramped bar area doesn't seem to make sense.
My main issue with this place is the noise level. While there are louder places in town, this place is simply too loud to carry on a conversation. The room is rather live but the main reason it's too loud is that they play the music much too loud. And yet it's not a dance club. I don't quite see the appeal...what's the point of going somewhere where there is no dancing, and yet the music is too loud to comfortably carry on a conversation with the person standing immediately next to you? I'm sorry, but if you're gonna have loud music, I want to be getting my groove on.
On the drink end, this place does have a few decent/interesting beers on tap, more so than the typical bar. When I was here though, none of them were local brews, they were all big names from elsewhere in the U.S. or overseas. I'm not sure how often they rotate their beers.
Drink specials? Nothing exciting; the usual bar offering cheap quality drinks at slightly reduced prices, nothing enough to actually bring me in the door.
Bottom line? This seems like a "big", "generic" bar...one of the corporate enterprises, a money-making deal. I guess it's just not my style. I prefer places that are more genuine and have more character.
Caveat: I've eaten here once for lunch.
That being said, I thought the food was fine. Pretty standard stuff in large-ish portions. We ordered nachos to share among 4. It was HUGE and I was told the chili con carne was really good (I made them put it on the side, as I don't eat red meat...). It was more than enough for the 4 of us. So much so that I could not finish my BBQ chicken wrap and had it for dindin that night.
Their fries deserve their own paragraph. You see, I love potatoes in all its beautiful forms, but ESPecially fried. Sometimes, I go to a place just because of their fries. I'm not sure if Black Bear will be one of those, mostly because there are better fry options in New Haven. But they were still pretty good. They were the crispy, slightly batter-y and salty kind, which are my favourite.
As a bar... I couldn't attest to its credibility. But I can say that the Black Bear has a pretty large space, which could work to its advantage. I.e. it probably never gets overly crowded, but I can't say for sure.
I finally went! And I couldn't tell you a damn thing about the drinks (I simply don't remember), the whole atmosphere (I never got past the front of the bar) or anything of real, significant importance. I do know that I had a good time even though it was really crowded because I bumped into some fabulous old friends that I hadn't seen in forever and a couple of new ones. What I do remember is finding comfort atop of a chair to chat with said friends, which I didn't dare move from for fear of being stepped on. Damn my little-ness!
