I was really excited to get up this morning and head to the Black Bear Diner. It had high reviews on Google, and it had a couple of omelets that looked really good, and I was just really jonesing for an omelet.
<pIt’s always a question when you show up someplace, and the restaurant is in a truck stop, but sometimes that can turn out really good. When I walked in the door it had a wonderful homey feel, totally felt like a mountain diner. There were paintings and art of black bears on the wall and lots of wood; it definitely had the feel of a homey type of place. The marketing material on the menu, which is presented as a newspaper and on the placemat, was really, really well done. They had an absolutely great brand story about being started in California and spreading across the country.
On the menu they also had a number of credos of the business. Three of those credos were friendly staff, big portions, and great food. They nailed it with the friendly staff. The people that worked there were absolutely friendly as could be. I was greeted as I walked in the door by two wonderful ladies, was seated, and quickly was waited on by a very nice young waitress. So as far as that credo, they nailed it. When they set the plate of food in front of me, wow, I was totally excited because this was a serious-sized portion of breakfast, and I was excited to get into it.
Unfortunately, the biscuit was golden brown on top and the bottom, but it was so big that it was a bit underdone in the middle, so it was actually not that good to eat. The omelet looked totally beautiful, but it was rather boring. There was nothing really that said, whoo, this is wonderful. And the hash browns, well, the potatoes were cooked. As far as brown, there wasn’t much crisp and brown going on to it, and they kind of forgot the seasoning.
Honestly, I think I might have been just as happy heading to a McDonald’s, or even better, I should have headed all the way into Jacky’s Mexican Food again and gotten another one of the huaraches, which would have made me really happy.
Oh well, on to the next place and and keep trying to focus on finding good local food and not huge massive chains.
As I headed back out, I was really hoping that the rest of the day would be better than the breakfast. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It took four stops, looking for a place to stay, before I landed at the rather crappy Havasu BLM Dispersed Camping.