The Bear Restaurant and Wine Bar

Great atmosphere, excellent food and friendly service! Excellent date night spot!

Came here for lunch a few weeks ago. The place wasn’t busy at all and the food took forever. We ordered a couple appetizers. The skins were alright, but were barely warm. The cheese sticks weren’t even melted. We all ordered the prime rib sandwiches. The slice of prime rib was generous, but it was cooked so well done it wasn’t even fuuny. It was grilled to the point of a well done steak. Didn’t even resemble prime rib. One of the guys in our party didn’t even eat his. The only reason I give 2 stars is because I liked the flavor of the skins. To finish off our waitress was very dull and not even friendly. I want to say that we waited around 45 minutes for our sandwiches too. I would hate to stop by if they were busy. I may or may not give this place another shot.

Make sure you check their hours before coming here because they close after lunch until they reopen for dinner. Had to come back a 2^nd time because they were closed the first time. The name kind of tells all, the interior décor is very nice and very bar orientated. The restaurant aspect of it is very nice as well, but the centerpiece of this location is probably the bar.
We were one of the only customers during lunch, which makes sense because I don’t see a ton of people flocking to a bar-​restaurant during these hours. Their menu is pretty small, which is also evidence of their bar-​orientation.
We had the soup of the day, Grilled Cheese, and Chicken Quesadilla. These were all excellently presented and the taste was great. This is definitely restaurant quality food, you can expect to have a great tasting lunch here! The staff members were very friendly. Parking is street parking, but I have never had an issue finding a close spot. Check out their menu on their Facebook page!

We love The Bear! Great food for both dinner and breakfast during the Farmer’s Market. I would highly recommend for anyone looking for a local option.

Well, I really wanted to like this place. I agree with the comment that it is trying to figure out what kind of place to be and falling in the middle. They created a place that’s neither a sports bar nor wine bar and things suffer from that confusion. First of all we were seated in a weird room off of the dining room with a large glass window and horrible bright fluorescent lights, sort of like a lab. The server was friendly but overstretched and the service suffered. We ordered an additional bottle of wine and didn’t get it until we were all done eating. Well almost all of us. One ordered steak medium rare and it came out medium well. The replacement didn’t arrive until almost 20 minutes later. The food was decent but the only really good thing that I would reorder was the meatloaf sandwich. Lots of things sounded good but most didn’t deliver. Duck, ok but the skin wasn’t crisped enough and the sauce was just sweet, no other flavors. Mashed potatoes are dry, but the corn was very tasty. The mahi mahi tasted good but was swimming in oil. The ribs were dry. The mushroom starters were decent but nothing amazing as were the onion strings. The smoked chicken quesadilla was about the best thing we ate. After a tough night for service they did comp the 20 minute steak replacement. With focus and more attention to detail (and better lights in the lab) this place may be worth a try. For now think sports bar and you will be less disappointed.

Atmosphere is a bit industrial but bright.
Service was ok. Not the best, friendly but not overly. But water stayed filled and order was taken in a decent amount of time.
The Iowa grilled cheese sandwich was pretty good. Really heavy. And the potato with smoked cheese soup was phenomenal!!! Definitely a cheese lovers dream!
Great homemade deserts the cream brûlée was one of the best I have had.
Wines are expensive but their other prices were decent. Not the largest selection for a «wine bar».

What a find! Rode bikes from the High Trestle Bridge to Ankeny and asked around for a place to eat lunch. Their grilled cheese was to die for with my favorite Iowa cheeses (Maytag Havarti and Prairie Breeze) on perfectly toasted sour-​dough bread. On tap they had Iowa’s own Peach Tree craft Blonde Fatale. For dessert we had the apple crisp from apples locally grown. Heaven. The folks at the local farmer’s market who told us about them said they used local produce from the market when it was going on. Is this heaven? No it’s Iowa.

This place is odd. The whole atmosphere and menu seems very disjointed. There was an obvious clash between the desire to be a fine dining restaurant and the desire to be a sports bar. I ordered the chicken Marsala, which came with soup or salad. I picked the clam chowder, which had a strange underlying flavor I couldn’t label. The chicken Marsala was decent, although yet again the sauce had a weird flavor I couldn’t figure out. I had a bite of my mom’s duck, which was overly fatty (even for duck) and was soaked in an overly powerful cherry sauce– it tasted like syrup flavoring one might add in an ice cream sundae. I tried my dad’s house salad as well– the dressing was odd, not something I would want again. Not sure if the place is trying to be «trendy,» but it’s really not working out. Won’t be back again– not to mention, the food is incredibly overpriced for what you get.

Went for lunch. Food was less than average. Had a smoked turkey and spinach salad. The smoked turkey was sliced up deli meat. Not terrible but not fantastic either.
The real turn off was the smell. It smelled like a broken sewer pipe.

I have been for dinner a few times now (haven’t made it for lunch yet) and I can’t say enough good things about this place; I don’t even know where to start! Everything from the appetizers to the dessert and everything in between is FANTASTIC! You can tell the chef truly puts his heart into every single thing he makes, as the presentation alone really shows. I especially love the crab cakes, and the crème brûlée is out of this world! I highly recommend trying The Bear out you will not be disappointed.
Dress is casual to nice. The interior is freshly remodeled with a clean modern feel. They have an extensive and creative drink menu, as well. Good for groups or a date night.