The Bear’s Lair

Great food — service is amazing! Talk to Manager Cody — he loves local beer! Great place before a basketball game! Pizza is very tasty along with the wings! They have 20 Taps of local brews — they need cable to watch TV but it is coming soon! This place gets better every time I go there!

What a relaxing experience having lunch at the Bear’s Lairs and I was amazed at how good the food was ! Good friendly service and great food can be hard to find in one place.

I want to give this place a decent review because the few people who work there seem really but this place is severly under-​staffed. I came here for a football game back in September when this place opened and they weren’t ready for the large crowd that came to pre-​game. It took 20 minutes to get a waiter and another 30 mins for food to arrive. Fast forward to today and I coke here before a basketball game and once again service is super slow and my burger is dripping in grease to the point I could not finish it.

The food here tastes about as good as the seats are comfortable. The salmon appears to be cat food. The silverware is dirty and marked up. The entire menu is overpriced. Would not recommend.

It only takes a minute to see how poorly managed this place is. One would think they could anticipate people coming here before a basketball game and wanting to drink beer? Seems they don’t check the home basketball schedule and only staff 2 people (1 person was also brand new to pouring beer!) on a basketball game day.
Service was comical to watch as it seemed hopeless to get a beer within 45 minutes! Customers were merely shaking their heads at the situation.
If you go here, you must have the patience of a saint. Do not expect to have a beer in your hand in less than 30 minutes.
I suggest you bring your own beer, as they will probably never notice — except for the fact you will be the only satisfied customer!
It can only get better from here, let’s hope!

The positives:
A nice selection of beers
Close to Haas for basketball games
Negatives:
Service
Service
Did I mention service?
Prior to Utah game with in excess of 100 people coming in and several leaving the staffing consisted of:
One very nice and patient young man who remained calm throughout the chaos.
One brand new hire who the young man was training in addition to running the bar, and delivering food.
One cook
Where is management?

Not sure why people are rating this lowly. I would have killed for a bar like this in college. The steak fries I had where crispy on the outside, airy on the inside. A delectable experience. The lamb burger I had was gamey, but hey, it’s lamb! Cocktails out of this world (if you spring for the good stuff). Love the modern interior and sophisticated ambiance. One small complaint: no burnt sugar for the absinthe. But hey, you can’t have it all. Enjoy, and Go Bears!

I really really wanted to like this place because the space is so beautiful, and all of the food on the menu sounds delicious. Plus I previously came here just for a tailgating beer special on the patio during a Cal football game, and that was great. But overall, after a sit-​down meal and experiencing the service, it was pretty mediocre.
SERVICE:
We ordered two beers with our meal. 20 minutes later, no beer and no food.
We reminded one of the staff that we saw walking around (I think it was a busboy or cook) for the beer, and he told one of the servers.
40 minutes later, the food finally comes out, but still no beer. We reminded a server about the beer.
1 hour later, we were nearly finished with our food, so we decided to give up on the beer.
As a former server, I understand that orders can be forgotten when it gets busy. But… it wasn’t busy at all. The restaurant was half capacity at most.
When a server finally realized at the end of our meal (when we asked for the check), that we never got the beers, she did offer two free ones. It was a nice gesture that I appreciated, but I would’ve liked if we were able to drink them with the food as we originally intended. What was a little irritating is the fact that the server that had originally taken our food/​drink order was about to charge us for the free beer we were drinking when she saw that it wasn’t on the check/​
FOOD:
Spicy Shrimp & Prosciutto pizza ($ 14): The sauce was flavorful and lot spicier than expected, which I actually enjoyed. BUT I didn’t like how it was BABY shrimp instead of actual shrimp on the pizza. To me, that menu description is misleading. Just call it baby shrimp. Prosciutto was pretty good, but not the freshest.
Wild Mushroom & Rocket pizza ($ 11): Pretty good flavors. Could have used more rocket greens though. I thought that was misleading as well.
Pretty good food, but not worth the 40 minute wait and the subpar service.

Well guys, this is not the Bear’s Lair that we all knew and loved. I hate it as much as the next guy, but I don’t think it’s fair to give this a terrible rating JUST because it’s changed. That said, I’ll never love this place, because it feels like someone replaced an old friend with a plastic mannequin version. Overall, I give it a very middle-​of-​the-​road ranking:
The interior is very clean, to the point of being too sterile. Could be that as time goes on, it’ll gain some character, but right now, the best way I can put it is that this is exactly what you would picture if you imagined a bar that was owned by Cal Dining (for any students out there). Lots of fake wood and plastic and metal. It doesn’t feel like somewhere you can really get comfortable.
The bartenders that I met were all incredibly nice, and the beer selection is actually excellent. Far better than you would expect from an on-​campus bar. That leads me to further believe that they’re really not trying to cater to students at all. It’s just too bad that the on-​campus bar doesn’t seem to want to fit in with the campus community.
Overall, I really hope that this new Bear’s Lair stops taking itself so seriously soon. Bring back BTC and cater to the students whose university you’re sharing! You’ve got half the equation with the beer and the bartenders, but you need to invite the campus in, not push them away!

Legacy matters. But, like a bad Hollywood reboot of a classic film, the new Bear’s Lair is a reminder that new and flashy is not always better.
Beer on tap is served in pint glasses only and the selection (bottled included) is limited at best. Sorry, no beat the clock… head over to Café Durant for that (seriously? Times change).
I have no qualms with the coed restroom but it cannot accommodate a moderate to large crowd.
Having experienced the old Lair food, I can say this is the one upgrade worth mentioning.
All in all, the past is just a fond memory and this new iteration caters to a different demographic and not the rowdy college crowd that gathered diligently on Fridays for BTC.
Go try their food and acquaint yourselves. It may not be there for long.

First time at the lair and it’s great! Grabbing wings and brews before the Cal game. Very lively and full of Bear fans !! Best way to pre game !

Great pre-​game bar; fantastic taps and friendly servers. We got the wings and they were solid. Music was good but low enough to have a normal conversation.

Wow wish I could give 0 stars. What happened to this place? This is the new Bears Lair?
I’m an alumnus and I came here to grab a drink and have a good time. This place just sucks. The vibe is too serious and not what I was expecting as someone coming back to campus.
Best of luck. I give in 9 months before this place goes out of business and rebrands itself towards college students… because after all it is the bar on campus at a college.

Finally walking into The Bear’s Lair after its reopening (and after your home girl is finally of legal drinking age) kind of felt like a homecoming of sorts — the type of moment every student is promised after attending Cal for three to four years, being able to drink on campus is an achievement of sorts.
I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the food at Bear’s Lair. Burgers and pizzas seemed to be taken a few notches up with nice presentation, quality ingredients. And portions were solid for the prices (although we ate there on a Monday when all burgers and pizzas were 25% off, great deal).
Service was a little slow, despite the Lair being relatively empty, but I’m chalking that up to the newness of the establishment. The Lair is most likely just getting its bearing back and setting up to be a classic establishment on campus, this time with a few more bells and whistles than before.

Hmmm, there are two listings and two separate addresses for this establishment called The Bear’s Lair on Unilocal!
I remember the original The Bear’s Lair having grown up here in the area. I was not exactly a fan of the original as it was too loud and crowded for my taste, even when I turned the legal age of drinking. Not my scene.
The Bear’s Lair I went to was the one located on the ground floor of the newly renovated Eshelman Hall, no longer at the lower level of the ASUC Student Union. The Bear’s Lair I went to is now much more sophisticated, upscale, classy, and minimalist. Gone is the loud, obnoxious atmosphere. In it’s place is music that is part of the background ranging from classic pop and rock to today’s new tunes. Sometimes depending who is maintaining the music, the noise level – it can be a tad bit too loud. I did request they turn down a tad and they complied with my request as I was studying for a French quiz.
At the moment, it is about the hamburgers done my way for me, bespoke aka custom. I am a tad bit irked that they do not cook hamburgers rare for food safety reasons, medium rare is about the best they can do. I add bacon, Swiss cheese and avocado on the side with steak frites.
The staff are pretty cool and chill. Yet, service can be slow and a miss. I have had to go up to pay my check instead of having the server attend to it and bring my change.
I quite like this new version of The Bear’s Lair. For me, it is like discovering that obnoxious, fraternity guy at university who kept picking on you grew up into a sophisticated man of the world with elegant class and exquisite taste. Who prefers wine and champagne to beer. And discovered a better method of showing how much he actually adored you back in the day as well as in present, real time without teasing you so much. And can do so on French! (Ooh la la!)

It’s back. The Lair is back! Too bad it’s back with more of a whimper.
Let me start with the positives. I love the layout of the new Lair. It’s definitely more chic with sleek tables that don’t look coated with celebratory beer spills from a class of 1996 graduation party. The inside is also spacious — alas, I can breathe comfortably inside the Lair! My favorite part is the patio. I love the view of Eshleman rather than the view of a slimy brick wall. Although I have to admit, I kind of miss the patio being street side because it was always fun seeing somebody you know to pester them to stop being a square for a a minute and join in the festivities at the Lair. Ah, Fridays as a fourth year Berkeley (undergrad) student!
Now, let me get to the negatives. I don’t like how they are taking the «classy» approach to the Lair. No pitchers? No «Beat the Clock»? Really. This is a college bar, not a bar in the middle of tech-​hub San Francisco! (It’s amazing how far down the SF tech-​gentrification has come — all the way down to the campus of Berkeley.) Let’s take the pretentiousness down a notch because for this bar to thrive like the Lair 1.0, it needs to draw students. And to draw students, it needs to be a fun. And for a bar to be fun, well, pitchers and «Beat The Clock» will definitely help a bar to be fun.
I also want to comment that the bathroom situation is a little weird. A co-​ed bathroom? I seriously thought I was in the women’s restroom the first time I was there because there were no urinals. But I can like with this change– the change in drink policy though is something that I simply cannot sit by, twiddling my thumbs (although, really that’s all I’m going to be doing; that and sign the petition going around online). Bring back pitchers and «Beat The Clock»!

Pleasantly surprised by Bears Lair 2.0.
Ideal before or after CalPerformances. Nice selection of beer on tap and other drinks.
I’ve only tried a couple of items. The Cobb salad. The lamb burger. Both very nice, although my burger was beyond medium rare. I’m excited to sample more of the menu.
Both visits provided excellent service.
Love the outdoor seating. Not wild about the coed bathroom.
Civilized.

The new Bear’s Lair completely fails to live up to the name of the previous establishment.
It’s far too posh and ritzy for a college bar now. They don’t serve pitchers (pints only) and lacks the appeal that it had when I was a student. Beat the Clock has since relocated so don’t expect to find it here.
It’s like they’re trying to appeal to the Silicon Valley workforce who have graduated from Cal… and I guess they failed to realize that they’re on the Berkeley campus among frugal students looking to have some fun, and not in Silicon Valley among the loaded tech crowds.

Pizza is extremely on point. I’d equate it to the level of gourmet pizza at Jupiter’s. Pretty standard selection of beers. Some cool cocktails but they don’t have ingredients for all of them yet.
That being said, opening and close times were not very clear, so after the waiter took our order, we were disappointed to find out that the kitchen had already closed and we couldn’t have our delicious pizzas. However, they provided some bar snacks on the house for the misunderstanding. For that, I’d give them a three-​star rating. If they are able to make their opens and close times were more clear, I’d change my review to a four-​star.
Definitely worth a try during the day. It’s nice to observe campus life while enjoying a casual beer and unique pizzas during the daytime.

This 3-​Star Review can easily improve to a 5-​Star Review if they bring back the some facsimile of the real Bear’s Lair.
But, it’s a cowardly, new world in which we live. The Bear’s Lair can’t sell pitchers because it «Encourages binge drinking».
It’s a bar.
On a college campus.
It was meant for binge drinking, especially before going to Memorial Stadium. But I guess it is much better if people just down multiple rounds of shots, right?
A confident binge drinker shouldn’t need that much encouragement anyways. Especially on Game Day. But, I am not sure it’s Game Day because the 3 TV’s (yes 3, not 30, I had time to count them repeatedly) were all dark.
I get that it requires an Act of Congress to get Pac-​12 Networks, but any game would help on a fall Saturday.
Help us Bear’s Lair, you’re our only hope.