About The Cafe

Sit down to a world class dinner served streamside or fireside at the Bear Cafe, located at the edge of Woodstock, New York. Please tour our dinner menu, which includes our nightly specials.

Cafe History

The Bear Café was created in 1971 by Albert Grossman, music industry visionary and personal manger to artists including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Band and Peter, Paul & Mary, Todd Rundgren and others.

In May of 1988, Peter Cantine and Chef Eric Mann, formerly a busboy and a dishwasher at The Bear Café of old, reopened The Bear Café and have run it since--on the rare occasion it hasn't run them!

In August of 2004, Peter and Eric welcomed a third partner to The Bear Cafe, friend Andy Cooper, at which time they also purchased the complex on which The Bear Café sits, from long time landlady Sally Grossman.  Cooper, Cantine & Mann also operate the legendary Bearsville Theater, on the rear of the property.

The Artist

The oil paintings you will view at The Bear Café are the works of artist Jo Cantine. Born Josephine Arosemena in 1893, Jo painted from her teens into her nineties.

Jo did her most noted work in the tropics, traveling with companion and fellow painter Tode Brower to Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Mexico and Key West. Among the galleries and museums that represented Jo's work were The Whitney, The Carnegie Institute, The Marie Harriman Gallery, The Woodstock Artists Association, The Alice Lewis Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jo's portrait of her grandfather, Jose Arosemena, the "George Washington of Panama," still hangs in the presidential palace of Panama.

Locals remember Jo fondly for her white Rambler station wagon (almost as old as she) and for her fiercely independent outlook on society, tempered by an ironic smile and her 94 years. Among her survivors is one of seven grandchildren, Peter Cantine, co-proprietor of The Bear Cafe.

Our Philosophy

World class food with good, friendly service in one of the Hudson Valley region's most picturesque streamside and fireside settings.

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Menu and Specials

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Accolades

Arguably the best restaurant in the region

–Gourmet Magazine

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Bearsville Theater

Already legendary among theatergoers and artists alike, the Bearsville Theater has undergone extensive renovation to become a one-of-a-kind showpiece venue for an array of musical, theatrical, catering and special events. More information