The 3rd Corner Encinitas

This is my 300^th review, and happily, it is for a wedding Anniversary dinner, and it was an EXCELLENT dinner (first time dining here)!
Parking is in The Lumberyard Mall in Encinitas, remember that parking can be tricky!
Please forgive the lack of photos, it pleases my wife greatly that I was not geeking out while celebrating.
Grant was our server (name on recp’t anyway) who was helpful, and professional, BUT… there were two big bobbles. Sea Bass was the special of the evening… Grant didn’t know whether it was California Sea Bass or Chilean Sea Bass. Asking the kitchen was of no help to him. This is a problem. The second problem… I asked for «brut» as in Champagne, and was given a glass of Rombauer Chardonnay. Also a problem. Sadly, service…3 stars.
Ambiance-​MUCH more attractive restaurant on the inside, than the outside. Aromas of stinky cheese in the air, but a very welcoming space, and the hostess seated us at perhaps the best table in the house…4 stars.
Food– We started with the baked brie in puff pastry ($ 10.95) with basil, roasted garlic and dressed greens. Small (ish) portion of brie, with rind on, served perfect temp with nicely dressed salad greens. It was an excellent start to the dinner.
She had short rib entrée ($ 19.95) with mashed potatoes, green beans/​carrots and cippolini onions and demi glacé. The carrots were a bit undercooked and the dish would have benefitted greatly from having a bit more sauce… but it was very good.
I had the gluten free Tomato Fusilli ($ 20.95) with chicken sausage, shrimp (3), caramelized onions, creamy ragu and parmesan. The pasta was a bit hard, and the onions were definitely more on the sauteed side than caramelized. Due to the peppy sauce, I would recommend adding artichoke hearts to this dish, but that is a personal preference. It was also very good.
For dessert, we shared the Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding ($ 10.00), this was also very good, served with excellent vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and a ribbon of caramel.
Food-​4 stars.
We are going to check out the 3^rd Corner location in OB next, but would not hesitate to eat at this location again.

Seriously on of my favorite places in north county. The food is consistently great and they have a nice wine selection that won’t break the bank. The scallops are not to be missed. They are absolutely fantastic. Don’t forget the chocolate bread pudding! So good!

This place has definitely made me fall in love! The food is delicious the ambiance is so relaxing & the service is great! I loveeeeee wine! So as soon as I walk in I’m immediately capture by the variety of wine bottles they have for sale! It can go from a nice dinner with a special someone to a simple outing with a friend either way this establishment has everything you need to feel right where you belong. I would have to say I wish the hostess was a little more attentive, it was me & my girl and she had us standing there for at least 2 minutes without a proper greet I guess she was doing something on her computer but at a place like this?!! I would expect more enthusiasm and smiles as soon as I walk in including seating us right away instead of having us wait on you. But thank you sooo much jair for being the best server to us you really made up for the initial entry! Seriously I recommend this server to you guys he’s fast attentive & always smiling !! I will be back this is a place to remember

We go here at least once a week. Love the atmosphere. Love the wine. LOVE the food. True love and thought goes into each dish and it’s a pleasure every time we go. I deeply appreciate the quality and care, the presentation, and the great customer service. It’s cozy and fun and always satisfying. The desserts are scrumptious and the entrees delectable. A grown up treat!

Bottomless mimosas and captain crunch french toast are amazing. Great bar tenders to boot

I’ve been to 3^rd corner a couple times over the last few years, most recently this weekend, and I always leave happy.
I like the vibe. Nice, but not stuffy or pretentious. Staff is friendly and service is usually pretty good.
Menu is large and varied, with everything from tacos to sandwiches to pasta to short ribs. Something for everyone!
Not to miss: cheese plate! It’s on the smaller side, compared to others I’ve had, but the offerings are solid! Apples, date spread, pecans, and 4 – 5 different cheeses. Perfect start to a meal.
They are generous with the complimentary bread, which is always a plus.
Most recently, I had the grilled chicken sandwich with pesto, sundried tomato tapenade, and goat cheese and it was amazing. My husband had the short ribs and loved it! I’ve also had the fish tacos and thought they were solid.
Great spot in Encinitas for a date night or girls night!

My friends and I came into 3^rd Corner tonight by recommendation. We were seated promptly, and our waiter Eric introduced himself and proceeded to explain the menu. He made some suggestions and was very accommodating to our dietary restrictions and overall pickiness. :) He didn’t write anything down and it came out perfectly! The waterboy filled out glasses regularly and fed us enough bread for a lifetime. So good! Food was great, service was great, overall experience was great! I will definitely be back and recommend to others.

Love this place. Menu does not disappoint, the wine selection and prices are fantastic and the servers get to know your name!

Good food and wine
Excellent service
Reasonable prices
Only minor drawback was air conditioning fan being too aggressive

Some of the best wine by the bottle selection in the area. I can only speak of reds, they carry a few of my favorites which are not available elsewhere in the area. They also offer reasonably priced wine tastings couple times a month, great chance to try before you buy. Their food menu always offering very well prepared, reasonably priced dishes. The staff very accommodating. One of my favorite local establishments.

Awesome late night spot for food in Encinitas, known as the after work spot for the industry people. Good food, good service and the bartender Caitlin is awesome!

We had such a great time here. Really good food and their recommendation for wine was really good. The wine selection assistance is something that we like coming back for, having a really good bottle of wine with your meal makes a huge difference. I suggest being hungry if you go.

Came here for lunch with co-​workers on a Wednesday. Plenty of seats available.
They have their wine bottles on the floor, so if you decide to purchase a bottle, you pick it off the floor display and it’s all cooled in the back.
The ambiance of the restaurant is very cool and relaxing. I love their DIY cork displays.
The wine selection is amazing. The food all looked delicious. I ended up with the soup is the day (black bean with a jalapeño topping) and a kitchen sink salad. Everyone at the table had something different and all looked good! No complaints!

Been so many times and it’s (mostly) been really good.
Had a couple of bad experiences with rude waiting staff — try to get a table with Sam as your waiter — he’s professional & courteous. But overall, it’s worth it.
It’s shame not everyone has had the same positive experiences, but for the price and quality I think it’s worth it.

3^rd corner has a big place in my heart.
Their menu is delicious and their portion sizes are perfect to share, have some left overs or if its late night — absolutely devour in one drunken, content swoop ;)
Its always nice having a gander amongst the racks of vinos and feeling some what cultured in picking out a bottle of wine with friends and bringing it back to the table to impress.
This place never ceases to put me in a good homey, humble mood.
(The hostess’ on the phone could work on their attitude just a wee bit)
Brunch is great on Saturday & Sundays. And this place has such a good wintery, holiday feel.
Also, I know a handful of people that have striked up conversations with those wining and dining on the table next to them and made some everlasting friendships and romances — so you’re amongst good company!
A perfect place to catch up with friends or if family are in town they are sure to love this place.
— Baked Brie
— Truffle fries
— The mushroom risotto

I really wanted to like 3^rd Corner, but the service was awful.
I get that this is a wine bar, fine, but I ordered a Rochefort 8. Kill me. Anyway, the server comes back with a Rochefort 6 and pours it without me seeing the bottle.
Very sneaky!
I explain to him, very nicely, that this was the wrong beer. He goes to have his manager look for a Rochefort 8, but they were all out.
The waiter immediately got very snippy with me when I said that I did not want the beer. All of a sudden, he becomes some beer expert and says they’re the same thing. They’re not.
He says he cant take the beer off the bill because he already poured it. I say «hey, can you at least knock a few bucks off» and that just ticks him off further.
I was paying close to $ 80 bucks for two people and he was a complete jerk. I get that people make mistakes, but be nice about it, apologize, and move on.

Really slow service.
8 of us ate here the other night, and while the food was ok, the service was extremely slow, with no apologies for the pace. Maybe that’s the way they normally are, but when you have a 2 ½ hour meal, and a good portion of that time is spent waiting: to order — for the food to come — for a desert menu — for the check to come, you have to wonder why the delay. When the waitress was at our table, the service was good
With just ok food and slow overall service, I’d find it tough to want to come back.

I eat here way too much.
Why: Open late, and because WINE!
GO-​TOs: Shrimp Skewers or Shrimp Arrabbiata pasta. Their Brussels and crème brûlée are really good too.

Great high class. place with exvellent food. Tgey have a ravj of wines yoy can oick ftom at store prices. Food was good. Try the scallop dinner.

We came here to celebrate my Mom’s 71^st Birthday for Brunch. 10 of us. The hostess was nice and didn’t require that the whole party was present before she sat me which was nice. My son and I got seated and waited for the rest of my always late arriving family members. The hostess told me they could convert anything on the menu to a kids meal. But when our server came, he tried to tell me they could only make grilled cheese, butter noodles and chicken tenders. They have no kid menu.
They also don’t have any highchairs or boosters! My sister almost lost it. She has a 2 year old and we were all shocked to find out they didn’t have anything that a child could sit in! They had to go get a booster seat from my brother’s car to accommodate her.
Our waiter was nice enough and asked those who were having mimosas if they wanted refills. He was timely and we got our food in a decent amount of time. The kids meal did take forever and we ordered it first thing. I hate to say this but their french toast was awful! They didn’t soak the bread long enough and the bread was basically dry int he middle like just a piece of bread! The bacon was mostly fat too. My son didn’t even eat it.
Both my sister’s were super disappointed that they don’t have the Captain Crunch French Toast any longer on the menu. Now there is a stuffed French Toast with strawberries, marscopone and honey or something close to that. They both ordered it without the stuffing.
My brother’s Smoked Salmon Bennie was full of salmon and he loved it. I have to say, there looked like a lot of food on that plate.
The potatoes were fantastic. I had a ½ Goat Cheese Salad with Chicken and although good, not worth $ 14?
The brunches are $ 21 with Mimosa’s and without $ 14 plus another $ 8 or so if you order a drink other that a mimosa.
I’m not sure I can justify a $ 20 omelet. My nephew did enjoy his Goat Cheese Omelet though. The eggs and toast bare bones dish was the same price and came with over cooked scrambled eggs. Very thick, large pieces of toast and potatoes. All in all the food was pretty great (except the french toast, of course) and the service was good, but the prices could be better. All in all, my Mom had a nice brunch with all her kids which was all we really cared about.

Had an amazing brunch… UNTIL we were told they would no longer serve us mimosas. (At a restaurant that serves brunch and boasts «bottomless mimosas.»)
We were there enjoying our brunch for about two hours (and 3 – 4 mimosas each) when we asked for more and they said «we won’t be serving you any more mimosas. We have the right to stop serving at our discretion.» We were shocked and extremely offended, as we were enjoying ourselves and not being any louder than anyone else on the outside deck.
I can TOTALLY appreciate and understand how a restaurant would and SHOULD stop service if people were being belligerent and obnoxious. However, we were neither of those. We were taking our time with a leisurely brunch and enjoying ourselves.
Seemed to us that they didn’t want to pour any more champagne because it was costing them too much. Hello??? Bottomless means keep em coming!
Food was good, and up until that, we were having a nice time. Bummer that they blew it.

My mom and I wanted to try something new Friday night, and we came across the 3^rd Corner. I was driving along Coast Highway, and our first choice fell through due to it being closed to a private party, so we came here because of the great reviews!
Right when we walked in, the hostess said it be a 5 minute wait, they were cleaning off a table. Sweet! We got sat right away. I wish we would have waited a little, we got sat on the right side of the place, which I was not a fan of the atmosphere, it’s right next to the wine bottle shop. The patio looked nice as well, oh well I will keep that in mind next time.
Wait service was really really slow. No one even came by to take our drink order for a good 15 – 20 minutes, we felt slightly neglected. We had to flag down a server, who said he will go get our server… so by the time our server came, we were ready to order drinks and food.
We ordered:
— Mushroom risotto
— short rib dinner
— Brussel Sprouts
— glass of Riesling
From all the pics on Unilocal,the sprouts looked so good! With a sauce drizzled over it. When we ordered it, we asked for the parm on the side because my mom doesn’t like cheese, but when we got the sprouts (which is a very large portion!) the parm was on the side, but there was no yummy looking orange sauce on top :(We found the sprouts to be ok, a lil more burnt than we liked but it was ok to eat. My mushroom risotto was pretty good, nice and creamy. The mashed potatoes that came with the short rib was a bit too salty. Over all, I had an ok experience with this place.

Was here a few nights ago and it was pretty darn great! Venue is super cool — with wines for sale all throughout the restaurant. Bar was situated nice, drinks were very tasty! I like the location of this place too (the Lumberyard has a bunch of delicious places to eat and good parking).
Had a couple of moskow mules and my friend had a manhattan. Both were extremely yummy.
My friend had the flat iron steak with veggies. YUM.
I had the shrimp arribiata? I think… it was a special and was the only plate that is spicy! SO GOOD!!!
Very lively ambiance — but not too loud. Spent a good 3 hours here and it was super duper.
Service was a bit lacking. I have to admit. They were not «on it» when it came to doing things in a timely manner. I realize it was busy and they had a couple of big parties.
It was MOSTLY great!

Ok so let me just start off by saying this will be my first and last time here. I have no interest in coming back after today.
First off, my friend Dane called at least a week or so in advance, probably more but I’m not sure as I wasn’t planning this, to set up a brunch reservation for 20 or so people. He said when he called they gladly took his reservation and had him choose 8 or so items off the brunch menu for us to order when we came.
The reservation was set for 11 and we arrived around 11:15 but 6 members of our party were there on time. The table was not ready when the first portion of our group arrived and when they showed up they acted like they didn’t even have it on the books. This reservation was for my friend Natalie’s birthday and they had balloons to be put around the table and everything so it would be a surprise but since the table wasn’t ready.
It took them at least another 10 minutes to put together a table for 15 people and when we sat down we had one server who seemed so scattered and like she truly didn’t want to be serving. It took at least another 10 minutes to get drinks. A large majority of the party got the bottomless mimosas and a brunch item for $ 20.95. But if you didn’t get the mimosas you were screwed. She gladly poured mimosas for all those who ordered them and completely neglected me. I asked for a coffee and water. Came back three times and never brought it. I had to remind her twice to just bring my coffee. Not a good start.
I ordered the Lincoln Hash and my server never told me how much it was since I didn’t get the mimosas because I’m not drinking at this moment in time. I also asked for a side of bacon and a side of toast. She said they only had brioche toast and I agreed to try it. The food took a bit to come out but I don’t think at this point I could blame the kitchen seeing as our server was taking forever to do just about everything. Natalie’s mom had to go find her at one point because our drinks and items were taking so long… she was chatting it up at the bar with her friends.
My last points of contention: side of bacon means two limp, sad looking slices of bacon and the brioche is huge, four slices– total of $ 7.00 for the sides. Coffee $ 2.00 and my entrée was $ 13.95. My meal without alcohol was more expensive than everyone else’s and was honestly nothing to write home about and I was never once informed of the prices. Felt unattended to and will not be back. She was autograted 18% but if it were up to me I wouldn’t have left a tip at all. Rounded up the change and would’ve called it a day. And this comes from a server who paid her way through college by doing so and is now a nurse. Just a sad excuse for a bottomless mimosa brunch. Ignite Bistro in La Costa puts this brunch to shame.

This place was recommended by a friend. I think it’s a cute little wine and bistro with decent prices. I had the chicken pesto sandwich and my Mexican girlfriend had the chorizo hash haha
Food was yummy. I’d definitely get both again. They have a $ 21 mimosa brunch. I gave it a 4 star because it’s kind of noisy here. The train runs directly behind the restaurant and the Main Street is directly in front. Otherwise, I was happy with this place and will come back

Review 59
The 3^rd Corner is a little gem in Encinitas, the service and food is amazing, wine selection is grand. We ordered our food and within 10min it was on our tables each time. They start you with a bread they make there and soft butter, I can eat just this and be a happy camper :)
The noise level here is romantic, I mean this isn’t a sports bar with drunks yelling when their team loses. This restaurant serves a unique clientele, casual attire and smiles.
Parking: it’s in a shopping center, free parking is abundant
Plan B

This place is amazing especially for winos like myself… one of those places you can sit and eat and drink wine for hours…
They have a little section/​store you can purchase wines with great variety…
The FOOD and service were phenomenal! Fresh ingredients, seasonal menu… Wine pairing at its best, our waiter was very knowledgeable without being pretentious…
Don’t forget to save room for dessert… it’s a must!