Popular Mandeville grill opens in B.R.

Matt Watson’s family has always been in the restaurant business. His father founded the first Bear’s Grill and Spirits in Mandeville in 1977 where it grew into a casual dining staple, and Watson and his brother took over Bear’s in 1983. They now operate locations in Mandeville and Slidell in addition to their original locale. The new Bear’s in Baton Rouge, located across the street from Mike Anderson’s Seafood on West Lee Drive, opened Monday with a temporarily limited menu of po-boys and burgers. “We’ve only been here for a week and a half, and that’s not long enough to set up a full menu,” Watson explains. However, the restaurant will soon offer Bear’s full spread of juicy burgers, hearty po-boys and sizzling seafood platters.

The restaurant is famous for its roast beef po-boys, which have been on the menu since 1977. Fully-dressed, the po-boy is a mountain of hot, thinly-sliced roast beef with fresh tomatoes, lettuce and mayo. “Most of the recipes are my mother’s,” says Watson, including the thick gravy that tops their fries, and many of the homemade sauces and sandwiches that populate their menu.

In a deal with the owners of Sangria’s Bar and Grill, which previously occupied the building, Bear’s has taken over the kitchen side of the business, while Sangria’s will continue to operate the bar.”We’ll probably do a few things differently, but the bar will remain more or less the same,” Watson says. For a preview of Bear’s full menu, visit bearsgrillandspirits.com.