MISQUAH — A black bear that has developed an interest in the dumpster behind the Daybreak Café returned for a third consecutive night Sunday, prompting the café to secure the lid with a bungee cord, a length of chain, and what owner Marge Tollefson described as “a stern note the bear has not, so far, acknowledged.”

The bear, estimated by witnesses at “good-sized” and by the Daybreak’s dishwasher at “honestly kind of polite,” has not been aggressive and has shown interest only in the dumpster, which the café concedes has lately held “a lot of pie that didn’t sell, which is rare, and which the bear apparently heard about.”

The Department of Natural Resources advised the café to secure attractants and not to approach, feed, or, in the words of the area wildlife officer, “strike up a relationship” with the animal. “Once they associate a place with food, they keep coming,” the officer said. “He’s not a bad bear. He’s a bear who found pie.”

The bungee held Sunday night. The café has since switched to a locking dumpster and donates unsold pie to the food shelf, which a sign in the window now advertises, “before the you-know-what gets it.” Eunice Dahlquist, reached at her usual table, said she had “no comment on the bear, except that he has better taste than some of the customers.”