New restaurant brings big city flavor to Eastern Kentucky town with steak, ribs, pasta
New York strips, artisan pastas and coconut shrimp: All are items you’d expect to find on the menu at Jeff Ruby’s rather than a family-owned restaurant in Irvine, but one woman is looking to change that.
Officially opening on Feb. 5, The Black Bear Pasta & Steakhouse aims to bring big city flavor to the quaint Eastern Kentucky town at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The new restaurant is the fourth such venture by Powell County based Jessica Hernandez, who moved to the area a decade ago from Virginia. She’s gone on to open the Mexican cuisine-focused Mi Finca in Stanton, Los Two Brothers in Beattyville and (briefly) a food truck.
According to Hernandez, the pivot to centering Black Bear’s menu around steak and pasta was due, in part, to the already oversaturated Mexican market in Irvine, which already is home to La Cabaña and El Ranchito Mexican Restaurants.
“It’s too small a town for three Mexican restaurants, plus I wanted to branch out,” explains Hernandez. “We do pasta at our restaurant (in Beattyville) and people love it, so bringing it here was a natural fit. More than anything, we want to offer something that the town needs.”
Ahead of the restaurant’s official launch I stopped in for a first-bite review.
Black Bear Pasta & Steakhouse menu highlights
Black Bear’s offerings are lengthy and wide-ranging in influence with pastas like spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine Alfredo and Italian sausage rigatoni and meats like St. Louis-style ribs, ribeyes, T-bones and New York strip steaks being the main focus. However, it also consists of a salad bar, wraps and sandwiches like caesar chicken and Philly cheesesteak, various hamburgers led by the roasted red pepper burger, shrimp, catfish, country-fried steak and more.
Hernandez said there’s even more plans to grow the menu with time.
“Everything we do, we want to make sure we do it well,” says Hernandez. “If that means doing a bit less at first but doing it amazing, then that’s where we want to be. We want quality over quantity.”
During my recent visit on Black Bear’s grand opening, I explored a few of the restaurant’s offerings beginning with two starters — a bowl of chicken and dumpling soup and an order of cheese curds. The soup was both tasty, filling and a good value at $4.99 for a 12 oz. bowl (you can also upgrade to all you can eat soup for even more bang for your buck at $7.99). However, the cheese curds were not the same value, with $7.50 netting me only around a dozen popcorn-sized poppers.
For the main course, both myself and the other guest in my party went for burgers — the “Bacon Bleu Cheese” (blue cheese crumbles, applewood bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion) for them and “The Firehouse” (pepper jack cheese, sauteed jalapenos, onion rings, applewood bacon, lettuce and Black Bear’s signature BBQ sauce) for myself. Both were quarter pound behemoths stacked with loads of toppings, with crisp bacon falling out of mine with every bite due to the sheer abundance of it. Each was delicious and worth every bit of mess we made devouring them.
Live music, events at Black Bear Pasta & Steakhouse
In addition to its far-reaching menu, Black Bear also plans to serve the community as an event space with The Cave Stage, offering up everything from live music to trivia, karaoke, an open mic, kids night and more.
With Irvine and Estill County at the center of the state’s country music revival thanks to artists like Tyler Childers and Geno Seale (who together wrote the Grammy nominated “In Your Love”) calling it home, the restaurant’s multi-faceted approach is one being lauded by the community, which currently only has April’s Mountain Mushroom Festival and the occasional show at the Steam Engine or Holla Holler for its talent to cut their teeth at.
“It’s a huge deal, not only for our artists but everyone that comes out to enjoy a steak that wasn’t aware they’d be getting a show too,” says Melissa Abney, booking agent for The Cave Stage. “In addition to showcasing our local talent, it’s also an opportunity to plug nearby venues like Holla Holler or gatherings like Bash on the Branch that offer similar experiences. We hope that everybody comes, eats, listens and enjoys themselves.”
The Black Bear Pasta & Steakhouse
Where: 77 River Dr, Irvine
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday noon-9 p.m.
Online: blackbearsteakhouse.com
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