Nicky Rottens Bar & Burger Joint

Absolutely horrible service and vibe. Place was completely empty and it still took 10min to get seated by the staff who looked as though they could care less we were there… Completely apathetic. Server was so slow that we eventually (30min later) left on our own accord due to the bad service. This place has completely went down hill. Rancho SD hospitality at its finest. Unless you are just going to the bar to get drunk with retired guidos and ex porn stars, I would steer clear.

My family and I always go to Nicky Rottens but the past 4 times we have gone the service has been horrible. The waiters are always nice and do their best but the last time we were there only 1 waitress was working and it was lunch time and packed so the waitress was so stressed and it took 1 hour and 30 mins to receive our food. The waitress did amazing for being busy. Also Our family originally went to Nicky Rottens for their Grass-​fed meat but now they don’t even serve grass fed meat. This is very unfortunate! And we will probably not be going there anymore.

I have to say I was disappointed from the moment we arrived and and rudely asked to give up our table for another group. We came in, 20 of us, as an end of the work year happy and going away party for a few of our colleagues.
We sat in the back enclosed patio were there was lots a room. I was sad to see that many of the tables were unclean and had food still on them. In fact, they remain that way for most of t our two hour visit. I do not know whether they were under employed or simply did not care. It did not give the eater and bar a good image.
Our Social Committee purchased a number of large appetizers and the big cheese bought the first round of drinks. The food was good. We were a happy group and everyone was enjoying their libations and eats. We had only one server, so one of our team members actually helped her out passing plates taking drink orders and such, and how were we repaid? Seriously, I can not believe that we were ask to leave our table for another group. We were paying customers enjoying the moment. You just do not do those kinds of things. Please note, yes we were laughing and having a good time, but we were not being rude at all.
I hope Nicky Rottens takes the time to reflect and take these issues to heart, to better their business. I have been here a number of times, and have experienced way better service, so I know they are capable.
Going from 5 stars to 2 stars, is never a good thing, but perhaps sometimes necessary in more ways in one…

Service wasn’t very good. If it wasn’t for the bus boy the waitress probably would have forgot about us.

First time eating here… Service was great and Chris had a great personality … I ordered my burger medium rare and it came out pretty medium well… The flavor was still great and I did enjoy it… All in all a very good experience

Came here Saturday night for dinner. Our server was friendly, drinks were good, fried pickles and our meals were good once they came. The service was just extremely slow and it took forever to get drinks and our food especially.

Not impressed. This place used to be so great and classy when it was savanna grill. Now it’s just another bar in the area. Came in Memorial Day thinking it would be packed and a good place for a beer since the sun finally came out. It was empty which is fine until I walked into the bathroom and it was a mess. Soap holders on the floor, messy, and dirty. You would think with less crowd they would have time to clean up. Also they enclosed the patio so my «oh hey lets go have a beer on the patio» turned out to be, «let’s go have a beer with big windows.» Bartender was really nice hence the stars. Overall, step your game up.

I just hate leaving scathing reviews, but this is the deal, we walked in following an employee with long dark hair, she was 2 steps ahead of us, acted like we were invisible while we waited at the wait to be seated sign. We waited, waited, she glanced over at us and kept doing what she was doing. We laughed at each other and casually walked out, is this how you treat customers? We just wanted something to eat, so we went to Hooley’s and it was great. There is a serious management problem with a whole heap of attitude, probably some business classes for dummies would be beneficial for the management. I will NEVER go back.

Many people have recommended that I have a burger here. I thought I had to stop in this place. The servers were excellent and the burgers were really big but the overall quality of the food was very poor. It had to be the worst burger I had this year.

We ordered fried pickles, wings and two burgers. All were very, very good! My mushroom burger was perfect, the cheese was tasty and the onion rings were crispy. The wings were also very good, not soggy and the sauce had the just amount of spice to it. The fried pickles were think and crunchy, so delicious! The drinks were on point, the ale and the Mai Tai we had were paired just right with our meals.
The bar area is very nice but I loved the golf course views.
If you want a good burger and wings this is a place you need to check out!

I specifically asked about a particular menu item and was assured that it would be prepared a particular way. It was not. The food runner was annoyed when I asked for an extra plate to try and salvage it. I was unable to and asked for a new one. The server brought the new item out after a lengthy wait and it was not good. My pineapple wasn’t grilled and there was so much sauce, I could barely eat it. The server was not friendly and only came by to ask if we wanted to buy more drinks to raise our bill, not ensure our satisfaction. I’m really sad that my first experience was a bad one.

Their food is «ehh» but better than most chain restaurants. I do love their garlic fries!
Service is horrible unless you sit at the bar. It shouldn’t take 30 for the bill and run a credit card.
The only plus is the live band on the weekends. It’s the only entertainment is RSD.

Nothing was bad per se… But nothing stood out. In light of the cost I just don’t see myself going back. I’ve had better burgers at fuddruckers, and nothing else that we tried was worth going out of our way for. It’s local to us, but there better options.

My hubby and I used to frequent here for breakfasy and loved it! Unfortunately time has changed things !!!(6months) my hubby got ham and eggs it was sliced thin sandwich ham, was eatable but different, i ordered my normal steak and eggs, i ate my eggs and potatoes, my steak was so tough i could barely cut threw it!!! Ended up cutting it into pieces for my dog, was really disappointed. Service was awful, she was more into opening chores then waiting on customers, and i think what finished us off, was the smell, it smelled like they used the same dirty cloth to wash all the tables with same dirty water ewwwww. SAD TO SAY WE WO T BE GOING BACK

This place has changed! We had okay service and our food was good. Our burgers not cooked the way we ordered (we ordered medium rare they came medium well). Since our server didn’t check back and we were hungry we ate them. Our onion rings and garlic tots were good though.
Not sure if we will come back

Every time I come here, I always say I won’t come back again. I made that mistake again due to a friend working close by and he wanted a quick bite after work. We walked in, were seated, and were greeted very nicely by the waitress. Her name was Rayeen or something like that (sorry for butchering the name). We ordered a beer each and a sampler platter to start. Comes with wings, onion rings, calamari, mozzarella sticks, and fried zucchini. Wings were oily as hell, mozzarella sticks had good flavor but were dry, and the other 3 things were pretty good.
We ordered our burgers, and mine came out wrong but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t really care at this point after eating most of the platter. The first bite of the burger was good, after that it was kinda too much flavor going on to enjoy and I just gave up on it and ate what I could. The garlic fries aren’t good and they are just plain and dry french fries with minced garlic sprinkled over them… nothing special.
The worst thing about this place is that they began in Downtown San Diego, but this location is most definitely NOT in Downtown, but in Rancho San Diego, and they have brought their downtown prices over to RSD, why is that? Who knows.
Overrated, overhyped, and definitely overpriced. Hopefully I stick to my gut and not come back unless I have to

I chose to throw my husbands birthday dinner here and the staff was absolutely amazing! Everything from the help in planning to the service the night of was perfect! Before coming in the owner himself called me to confirm the special needs of my party. He was so generous and helpful! I honestly couldn’t imagine a better experience.
Our waitress was very attentive and sweet! She was an absolute pleasure and helped in making my husband’s birthday dinner perfect. Thank you to the owner, Nick, & our waitress, Sierra. As well, thank you to Halle who helped me plan the night and even made a sign for my husband.
Such a great night!

My previous impression of this place was that it was an upscale burger joint for those who want a better than fast food burger without the chain feel of Chili’s and Applebee’s.
In all fairness, I will say we were a party of 20 there for a birthday dinner. Let me also preface this with, I was a food server for 10 years, I know how to work a large party with kids. However, there were only 4 other tables in the restaurant at the time, which was 5:30. We had 5 kids with us under the age of 8, but our server didn’t seem to know the importance of keeping said kids from getting to a point of starvation by taking more than an hour and twenty minutes to get our order taken and served! When we got there we asked for some high chairs and she brought them rather quickly and disappeared again. We asked if they had booster seats (for my 3 year old) and her response was pretty lackluster, «Ummm, I don’t know. I’ve never seen one». So my kid sat on his knees all night and got up and wandered around at his leisure.
The important part about food:
The food was pretty delicious! It speaks so nicely to your eyes — «Please eat me, I’m delicious!», it said. The ranch dressing was some of the most delicious I have ever tasted!
The burger was WELL seasoned. I could taste the delicious flavor, and also knew that I would pay for it later. I was so swollen after eating, my hands looked like I was 8 months pregnant again!
The food gets a 4.5 out of 5 in my book!
The important part about the service:
It was extremely disappointing!
So here’s what I noticed: The end of the table that was strictly adults (who were all drinking) got excellent service. Not one of them sat with an empty glass, and most all of their food was delivered first. The end of the table with all the kids and the moms of those kids, were left without refills on their waters and the napkins we requested twice. One of the moms had ordered broccoli instead of french fries for her daughter. Not knowing this until the food was delivered, another mom asked if she could also have a side of broccoli (as the food was being delivered) and the food runner said, «You’ll have to ask your server». This is a half acceptable answer. A more acceptable answer (again, from the point of view of someone who has been a food server) would have been, «Your server can put that order in for you, let me grab her real quick». We had not seen our server at that end of the table for at least 20 minutes, and when more food came out, the mom asked again, and he said, «Really, you’ll have to ask your server». He didn’t say it in a rude way, or with a tone, but he clearly realized that we couldn’t get the communication to our server, because she wasn’t taking care of us.
We were there for approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, and I’d say our end of the table interacted with the server a grand total of 4 times. Here’s the funny part: at the very end when we told her, «Sorry the kids have been a little rowdy», she said, «Oh, no worries, I know how kids are». Clearly you don’t or you would have put the kids food in immediately after firing the appetizer order. The whole meal for 20 people got held up by the 1 appetizer that was ordered. That’s just poor management of your order.
Basically, I’d for sure try another Nicky Rottens cause the food was great, but I don’t think I’d give this location another go.

TERRIBLE SERVICE.
Decent food, and awesome number of food choices. But… TERRIBLE SERVICE.
I really want to try it again and hopefully have a different server because the food excited me (besides the hair in my meal this time, but that happens every now and then and I won’t hold it against the chefs).
But AWFUL SERVICE. I never saw one smile, very impatient and assuming, and she made me feel like I was hindering her day by stepping into the restaurant… sorry for bothering you, ma’am. I thought this was a place where I could maybe sit down and enjoy some lunch.
Hopefully this was just an unlucky visit and the next one makes up for it.

Dear nicky
I guess 10 person table is not worth giving good service to when you have a empty restaurant on a monday, we will not use you again for our big dinners. I know it’s hard to smile be patient and check in enough so that your guest know what’s going on with there food. It took an hour to get our food and we had to keep asking for sugar and napkins. The manager was told and informed he didn’t seem to concerned, maybe even bothered by us. We won’t bother you again…