It's been a long minute since I've written a YELP review, but I feel that places like this that don't get a lot of online reviews deserve a little effort when then deliver. I tend to lower my expectations a little bit when I find myself in smaller towns in rural areas, and this spot did a nice job exceeding them. My first time at the Black Pearl and I'll call it a fantastic addition to Rangeley, great space that felt well lit and comfy in a cold late winter night. Sat at the bar and had a really tasty blue cheese burger with an upgrade to risotto. Highlight of the night was the St. Paddy's special Guinness espresso martini. I had no plans for 3 of anything like this, but I had 3! Service was fantastic taboot! read more

This place was super cute and the server was awesome!! They allow pets! And even brought my dog a water bowl! My bang bang shrimp tacos were really good and the sweet potato fries were AWESOME!!!! read more

This review has nothing to do with our server, who was fabulous. She was excellent and attentive. The fish tacos were good, as well as the fries. More sauce on the fish would have been a 10/10. The blueberry margarita was great as well. the wings were okay, a little too overcooked and i would've liked to see some homemade ranch. The chicken parm was absolutely terrible unfortunately. Flavorless, the chicken was too thick, pasta was stale, and it was freezing cold. I haven't sent back a dish in over 5+ years and unfortunately I had to send the chicken parm back it was inedible. the vibe of the restaurant was not great as well. We overheard other tables talking about how poor their food was. for example "freezing cold chowder" "my burger is cold" "i could cook better at home" "i'm not paying for this". it definitely added a negative vibe to the experience. This place needs WORK and needs it asap. The wait times were okay, but the kitchen has a lot of work to do. I hope the new owners step it up, we love rangeley and come yearly, but for this place to survive they need passion and some blood sweat and tears to get this place up to par compared to the other restaurants. read more

The Black Pearl - Seafood Near Me - Rangeley, Maine

Located in the old Red Onion restaurant, the new owners from Rhode Island have done a nice job re-envisioning the space. They took out the booth seating and made a nice nook by the bar for casual seating for drinks. The main dining room remains the same. The front of the restaurant is still closed off from seating. My understanding is that that area will be for formal dining. Not a pizza staple like the Red Onion but has a nice selection of menu options. Tonight I had the fish tacos and my husband had a steak. Both were done nicely with no complaints. Steak cooked to his liking and tacos not too spicy. Fish was tender and juicy. We had seating close to the windows so a nice view of Main Street as it was snowing. Beautiful. Good job, not remarkable, we will be back read more

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Expensive, dreadfully overcooked branzino and tasteless Ahi appetizer. The only good thing was the bread. The fish came without the advertised sides on the menu, but with completely different ones. I can't think of when I had another meal for $176 for two people that was this poor. read more

Fantastic! Tyler is great! Wonderful atmosphere and delicious cuisine. Service was great!

First time here and it was a great experience! Cute place but would recommend opening shades at front. If not for open sign, we wouldn't have known it was open for business. I had a baked Parmesan crusted scallop special with risotto and green beans, we had a couple of orders of chicken fingers, and a couple of pizzas. Loved the scallops! There was a very good portion of big, fresh scallops that were very flavorful with the Parmesan crust and breading. The risotto was OK, but the green beans were crisp and well cooked. The pizza is wood fired, and thin and crispy in the middle. One of the pizzas was the taco pizza with steak, which was very flavorful. Almost a sour cream base with jalapeños, onions, black olives, and big chunk of steak. I would definitely get this one again. The chicken fingers were, well, chicken fingers. Best part of the meal was dessert. They had homemade brownie sundae with homemade ice cream. We had the caramel ice cream, which is some of the best I've ever had. The brownie was gooey and delicious. The server was attentive and the food came out without much of a wait. Would definitely recommend the black pearl if you're in Rangeley! read more

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Our experience at black pearl was extremely disappointing considering the price, services and food. I do not understand all the 5-star reviews that it has received. There was an event upstairs and that may have impacted our experience. We could not get a refill of our drinks (and watch out the iced tea is not refillable-$3 per skinny glass). It took the kitchen forever to bring out the food and they completely were lack of flavor. Do not get the clam ball- there were 4 tiny clams per golf ball and I guarantee that you can buy a basket of hush puppies in the south for a quarter of the cost that this place charges. Do not get chicken fingers - they are from Walmart frozen section. I feel that we wasted money and calorie intake. read more

Ambiance was okay, but there is definitely an odor in the restaurant. Those in my party joked it was probably remnants of the old carpeting from when the place was The Red Onion. It smelled like someone's basement. Servers were very nice. Friendly. Two people in my party ordered the Chicken Parm. Fifteen-twenty mins passed before the server returned to say "We are out of Chicken Parm". Not a great start in that the server should've known this right away. The time it took for the kitchen to react is also signs that this place cannot get on their A game. So that left three of us eating the Fish n Chips. Greasy. Brick heavy. Fries were good but all of it is really Sysco delivery food plated up. All of us in our party have tried the place at least once before. We WANT this place to improve. Always the same issue- just ok food. Nothing special. And slightly annoying. read more

My husband and I decided to have lunch at the Black Pearl today for the first time. We entered the restaurant at noon, although busy outside there was only one family inside the restaurant. We sat for about 10 minutes before our server took our drink order and we ordered our food at the same time. The other table left the restaurant without ordering food. The restaurant filled up despite the fact that we saw 2 more tables of 4 leave without ordering. My husband's clam chowder arrived finally at 1pm, see photo. I asked our server what was the problem with the 55 minute wait but didn't get a clear answer. Five minutes later our meals arrived...all of our food was room temperature, my hamburger bun was stale and hard, the lettuce was cooked and had some unidentified sweet sauce on it. My husband's fish sandwich was also at room temp on a roll that was stale. He didn't touch the clam chowder. The fries were tasteless, hard and cold. Our server walked by several times and didn't see or ignored our hand waving, finally my husband went up to the station and asked her to bring the check. We paid the bill, $49 and change and left barely touching our food. We will not dare to try this restaurant again. The owners are from RI? Where was the RI style clam chowder? I sent this photo to my family and no one could identify the chowder. And btw, the family sitting next to us who were waiting For a server to take their order left right behind us. 12 customers walked out because they waited and waited! read more

The Black Pearl - Seafood Near Me - Rangeley, Maine

Ambiance is quaint and staff is friendly! My steak was very good ! Took a while to get meals but that's okay everything else was excellent .

A note before the review: This review is 3 stars not because of the service (great and attentive) or the dessert, (we got the raspberry cheesecake, delicious!) it is specifically because of the food. We got the following: blackened haddock tacos, (mom) burger, (dad) bbq steak tacos, (me) and kraft Mac and cheese. (younger brother) Everything was very mid-tier. The haddock and bbq steak tacos were gloopy and salty, and did not live up to expectations. The burger was not cooked right. (asked for medium, got medium-rare) Floors were dirty. If the dessert wasn't good, this review would have been 1 star, so in conclusion, entrees here: fine if you want to grab a quick bite to eat, but desserts will live up to the hype and saved this review from being lower read more

Service was very poor. Our waitress barely spoke and acted like she could care less that we were there. We asked for more water while we waited for our food, which took a long time. She forgot. We was Waited a long time for our food. (It was busy.). She never came over to check on us or offer more drinks. When we asked for an update on our food she said. "I have no idea." We asked if she could check. She never came back with an update. We eventually got our food and it was very tasty. read more

Clam cakes and chowder are amazing , also had their Bang Bang shrimp , it was very good but not as good as Chowder and clam cakes . Nice to see some Rhode Island flair :) My only complaint was we were not offered desert . Plenty of food regardless but ;) Will return again , thanks read more

We have stopped in a few times since it opened. The food has been enjoyable so far. Love the little back bar too. Waiting area is done very tactfully and traditional to the local region. Some Rhode Island flavor which makes it interesting. Hopeful that it will also find ways to highlight seafood local to this region as well. Looking forward to coming back and enjoying the very desirable patio area in the warmer weather. Great ambiance!! Excited about another great option is town. read more

The black pearl is kind of an interesting place to review. Quite honestly never had a harder time grading a place I've been too after the fact. Firstly the food was excellent. I had the Mac and cheese and the cheesecake. Both were perfect. Especially in the rangley area about as good as you can find. However. The wait times and service were appalling. We originally had one waitress but due to some training protocol was given another. I was fine with this. Before I realized this person who was serving us had never seen planet earth before. The wait times were ridiculous it took around an hour for main courses too come out. And a shocking thirty minutes FOR DESSERT. while we did get the occasional check in and were apologized too for the wait. Nothing was comped even though many things went aray. They originally gave me the wrong order. Then they spent over thirty minutes on getting us dessert. We had asked for no blueberry's on one of the desserts. The only change we had to an order might I add. They failed too do this. Overall this restaurant was like a fever dream. I'm starting to wonder if this experience was a fluke or not because of how high end it presents itself as. Honestly if you want too try it go for it. But don't forget to bring a snack while you wait read more

Business hours were strange. Didn't know if they were open or not. When we got there, the waitress was nice but didn't seem to know the menu or specials at all. We asked about margarita flavors and she was clueless. Their website offers specials that they don't honor. Food was decent but drinks were trash. If you spend your money here it will be very hit or miss read more

Had lunch with a friend last Friday. We both had the shrimp tacos. Had a kick to them! I had the sweet potato fries which were spicy and very tasty. She had fresh greens with her meal. Definitely will go to dinner here with my husband the next time we will be in Rangeley. Highly recommend this new restaurant! read more

Four of us popped into the Black Pearl on a Wednesday in June. Including us, there were about fifteen people in the place, with plenty of empty tables. There was one server, hustling to cover everything. Another didn't seem to be accomplishing much, wiping tables and laying out utensils. We ordered very simple dishes; 2 bowls of chowder, chicken wings, a sandwich, and fries. It took 45 minutes for our meals to make it to the table. The food was good, but not worth the wait. Once the summer tourists start arriving, this staff is going to collapse. read more

I had the Blue onion burger ... it was excellent... I will definitely be going back to try some other things.

The vanilla ice cream tasted like angles popped in my mouth. the best ice cream I've ever had! -- Pepper (9 yrs old)

Well, i am visiting from New Jersey and i have to say this restaurant "The Black Pearl" Is by far one of the most wonderful place to eat at Rangeley . Firstly as we walked into the restaurant we were greeted with a very warm welcome. The waitress could not have been more wonderful and the food was delicious. From beginning to end our experience there was fantastic, this is truly a wonderful place to eat. The food and service is second to none. I have eaten at a few other restaurant but my experience was not the same. I fully recommend this wonderful restaurant. It is worth every dollar you spend there. Thank you "The Black Pearl". Wonderful staff, delicious food. read more