Black Bear Coffee

My Go-to spot for relaxing conversations with friends. The music isn't loud so I can actually hear my friends. I love their pumpkin pie flavored drinks. BUUUT,

One problem though, I was going to give it 4 stars because the music was distasteful. Usually they play indie style music that goes very well with the environment and the aesthetic of the place, but today they had hip hop and rap. I don't think that is necessarily worth making it 4 stars, but it was just annoying and did not match the vibe. I hope a manager reads this, rap is a very acquired taste for alot of people , many find it offensive and annoying. Please stick with the calm indie style music, much more suitable for the environment and conversations. Rap would be more suitable for a gym, not a relaxing coffee shop where people are studying and trying to talk to eachother. Thanks:)

Wow what a cozy place! They had a great selection of tea and coffee. Lots of delicious pastries! I had herbal tea and overnight oats. My group held a book club meeting near the fireplace. It was awesome.

This review does not reflect Black Bear Coffee as a whole, but rather our most recent encounter on July 17th. The customer service today was one of the worst we have ever experienced. Our blonde server Natalie was extremely rude and brusque. She rolled her eyes at us when we placed our order, then while making the drinks talked loudly to the other server about how customers always come in at the last second and order drinks. We got to the store at 3:40pm, and received our drinks well before closing time. If closing is at 4pm and you don't want customers 15 minutes prior, why leave the doors open but make customers feel unwelcome and uncomfortable? Usually Black Bear is a fun and pleasant atmosphere with incredible drinks and treats. But our server helped us find out the best way to ruin an experience is to have offensive and rude customer service and poorly made food. To be honest, I didn't think an Oreo crunch could be ruined - somehow our server found a way. We ordered several Oreo crunches and every single one was bland with huge ice chunks and crunchy ice bits throughout. Fyi, Oreo crunches are BLENDED drinks. That means more than 9 seconds of blending in order to make an actually palatable drink. I think someone needs to clue in our server about that, as well as a lesson in real customer service, which should not include regarding customers as inconveniences combined with displays of explicit rudeness.
I’ve worked in restaurants and cafes before when I was in high school/college. One thing I learned is that you can’t clean your entire working area 30min before closing time! All it takes is a couple customers to walk in and order and your right back to square one! You clean once the store is closed it’s that simple. It’s a terrible business model to be rude to customers because your upset that they came in when the store is still open. Hope the management at Black Bear realizes this and expects more from their employees than the experience Natalie provided. My advice to Natalie: don't take a job in customer service if you don't know how to keep your childish attitude under wraps! Wish I could take my tip back I had left for you because you definitely did not earn it!

cute interior. my dark roast coffee was overly hot and weak. Burritos are premade in display case. The bacon burrito is small and nuked, and had a half of slice bacon and half and egg but lots of potato. The egg sandwich was ok, expensive considering the small amount of ingredients. the bagel was small, bland and barely toasted. service was perfunctory. social distancing of tables not implemented. Not coming back.

I was disappointed in the service, prices. I was here for an informal business meeting. I ordered a white chocolate lavender latte and a blue berry muffin. The young lady taking my order was nice & friendly. Too bad it ended there. I waited over 15 minutes for my coffee. The young lady was unsure of her self and bounced from order to order. She did one thing here and one thing there. The third lady was stocking the front shelves instead of helping with drinks. One could have been doing cold drinks and the other hot drinks. The wait would have been less for everyone. First time I was here and the last time!

I had an iced caramel latte and it was amazing. It wasn't watered down and it had a strong espresso flavor. I also had their chicken sandwich and it was really really good. I will definitely be back and I just anybody in the neighborhood or shopping at Safeway to check it out!

I'm sad how much money I've wasted at this place, wanting to support a local business---but bad business is bad business. 9$ for a large dirty chai? No thank you. Had to lower my review for that one, i thought 3$ drip coffee was kind of bad, but its good coffee and on my way to work, so I've frequented the place. I'll never be back, the service is inconsistent and today it was subpar, they wanted to charge 1$ for a to-go CUP. The employees are very rude, but from what I've observed, the person in charge creates this culture with her stingy attitude.

Solid coffee; food is outrageously over-priced, though. My almost $10 veggie sandwich was on what I would describe as glorified Wonder bread. Furthermore, the slap of mayonaisse lacked any flavor style. I don't know how you can call a piece of cheese, a thin tomato, some cucumber, and wilted lettuce a veggie sandwich. Extremely disappointed. What had me most concerned was only one of the three employees were wearing a mask. Regardless of how people feel about mask- wearing, employees at restaurants must comply.

really good coffee and friendly staff
finally take American Express!!

Food decent but very slow service. Coffee terrible. Ordered a cappuccino and 3/4 of the cup was foam. Coffee was bitter. Very disappointing.