Nick's on State — Restaurant in Carlsbad

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I give the food 5 outta 5. The ambiance is 5 out of 5. The service is lacking. The girl at the front is not personable. Literally the greeters of a Restaurant set the mood. They need to be people persons... people pleasers... and smile. The girl that sat us was rude and demeaning. She made us feel unwanted and like it was a pain to help us. We have kids and we were quoted 35 minutes for a table... after waiting next door for 35 minutes we came back and checked if we were good to go and she said that was just a quote, and we still stood around for another 10minutes. Then we asked at 45 minutes if we could take the next open table since she quoted 35 minutes. She rudely stated that reservations take priority. I said do you have anything that is a reservation for more than an hour from now because we literally would be in and out in 45 minutes, my kids just wanted to eat and get going. She rudely said there's a reservation in 2 hours and we have to be out by then. We said that's no problem we'll be out in less than an hour. She sat us and told our kids, I have etch-a-sketches for you. But never brought them over. We asked the server for them and they finally brought them over. The server was nice and trained well. I ALWAYS leave 30% or more for a tip. He didn't deserve his tip to be subpar because of the greeter. That's why I write the review. We tipped 30% and sadly we probably won't be back... we came at 5pm before the dinner rush and were treated as an annoyance. We loved the food and our server was nice. But if the greeters are gonna be rude and seem inconvenienced, then we don't want to deal with it.

EDIT: so we came back for a 2nd chance, maybe we were wrong the first time or had bad luck. Well this time the host was awesome, nice and smiley , but the service was AWFUL. Lol. You just can't win here. The server forgot 2 bring us waters, not once, not twice, not three times, but 4 times. We asked 3 times and didn't even bother to ask the last time we just stopped someone else walking by. She never smiled once, she didn't know what time lunch starts and breakfast ends, she didnt know what the kitchen was out of. 2 of or items were not available and she didn't tell us until the food came out. She forgot our cocktail order. We had to ask where the drinks were. She forgot to bring our kids etchasketchs. Like I've never had to ask someone so many times to do their basic day 1 stuff. The food is good. But Not worth the terrible untrained staff. We will...

I ordered the fried chicken sandwich. The chicken was dry and tasted like a frozen patty. The sandwich was mostly coleslaw piled 2 inches high. Everything tasted very poor quality. Definitely not sufficient enough for a proper entree. Barely any protein. I had a single glass of white wine too for 16 bucks. I’m sure it wasn’t anything too fancy. $45 after tip.

These days feels pointless to go out to eat. You’ll leave feeling more malnourished than you did coming in.

Go to Mexico and buy your groceries/food. $45 won’t even get you a proper meal here. But anywhere else in the world, ANYWHERE that $45 will get you high quality meats, fresh organic fruits and veggies, multiples courses and bottles of wine. Nearly anywhere else outside of America. Oh and you also won’t be expected to leave a 40% tip. Hmm somehow seems like everyone else is doing something right. What’s wrong with America?

Nicks is supposed to be one of the better restaurants to eat at but the food taste like frozen plastic and rubber. Complete waste of time and money.

I’ll be joining many others who decided to say goodbye forever to dining out. Start cooking at home and growing your own. The food 10 times out of 10 is never worth the money, never fresh, never quality and never sufficient for a proper healthy meal. You never get enough protein or veggies and it’s just an expensive blop of mayo and lettuce. It’s not worth the time it takes to hunt through reviews to maybe just maybe find a half decent restaurant that uses fresh quality ingredients and prices match what you’re getting.

The only thing that makes Nicks better than most is that you aren’t getting rat drippings or hair in your food. Aside from that, the food is really no different from anywhere else you could possibly go eat at here in the United States of America.

Why is this such an epidemic in America? When other countries do the dining experience so well?

Even if you are a millionaire with disposable income, it’s still not going to give you access to better food at “better” restaurants. It’s like it just doesn’t exist here even if you wanted to overpay for it.

It’s literally everywhere including the Michelin star restaurants. Just problem after problem after more quality...

I was turned onto Nick's by the glowing reviews. It was our last night in town so we wanted to try something unique. I saw pictures of the chicken and waffles, and a few other tasty meals. After a long day at the beach some comfort food sounded good. We arrived at about 745 and it seemed to be the tail end of the dinner rush. It was busy, but I spotted a few open tables as we approached the hostess. I figured we wouldn't be sat right away but I didn't expect the awkwardness that followed. Seems like a reservation only kind of spot, or tip for table kind of joint. Which I am normally fine with but didn't come prepared based on the location. This isn't a downtown restaurant atmosphere, but Nick's sure thinks it is. I approached what looked like a hostess station in the door to the right. There were 4 people standing in a corner area, but it wasn't clear to me what to do. I asked for a table for 2, was pointed to another person next to the person I spoke to. They glanced at their tablet and told me it would be a 30-40 minute to wait, Then there was a pause and wait for me to pay to speed it up. I waited for a full 30 seconds of awkward silence to pass. Then I said "ok, can you take my name", I watched as the hostess scrolled down past 10, 15, 20 all the way down and selected 40 minute wait on their tablet, then they asked for my phone number. In an effort not to be rude, I completed the entry process. They stated I'd receive a text when my table was ready. I looked around and there was not a single other person waiting, nowhere to sit to wait for a table, and I spotted at least 4 open tables. They didn't even have a bar to sit at. I could tell the type of experience this was going to be, and decided there are entirely too many good food spots in the village to settle for that level of pomp. I'm sure the food would have been delicious, but I was on vacation from all the city BS, so I passed on it here. Maybe next time, but...