Nostalgia Kitchen + Cocktails — Restaurant in Clarkston

there are not enough words in the english language to accurately describe how amazing this place is, but i’m going to try-

my friend and i hadn’t seen each other in 15+ years and decided to meet in the middle of where we live to get dinner and catch up. we wound up at nostalgia (which we laughed at the irony of the name of it with us having not seen each other in forever). we arrived and we were the only 2 white people in the restaurant (we grew up in conyers, so i hardly noticed) but with the temperature of the world right now, i was concerned that we would be impeding? or something? i’m not sure. we were greeted warmly and given a choice of where we’d like to sit. we chose a big booth because they weren’t busy and it looked comfy (and they offered it). unbeknownst to us, there was an event going on… it was about black men’s mental health. we immediately felt like our seats should have been filled with someone else, so i offered to move to a smaller table so the booth could be filled with people that came for the event. we were intrigued, and after being a middle school teacher in aps for almost 10 years, i was very interested in hearing the discussion, so we agreed to partake for a bit (we still had some catching up to do, so we didn’t stay for the whole thing). when i offered to move, they said “absolutely not, you belong here”. sir, what?! that doesn’t match the darkness in the world these days. water filled my eyeballs. i said “thank you. so much. we are willing to share our table if anyone needs a place to sit”. we had 3 new friends come sit with us. towards the end, i asked for our check and we got a huge apology because it had been a while (they were so busy!). i made it super clear i was not complaining… i wanted to give more space to the guests. again, they said “don’t worry. you belong here”.

y’all. i have never walked into an establishment, be it all white, hispanic, asian, etc, and felt so welcome. did we stand out? well, yeah… but that’s the beauty of america. we’re all different. turns out the discussion was leading to showing us we all have something in common— no matter our age, race, etc.

i’m not a religious person, but i feel like we were meant to be there at that exact moment. nostalgia was absolutely a bright light in a very, very dark world right now.

i cannot recommend this place enough. the food was incredible, the service was amazing, the prices were untouchable, and the atmosphere was like a big hug from a grandma that you haven’t seen in years. the people working here are top notch.

nostalgia, thank you for being exactly what i (and the world) needed at the exact right time. we will be back and we will bring friends! thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me hope. i...

So this is my first review I’ve ever made. I was so excited to come to this restaurant coming all the way from another country to have a dinner with family for my birthday. I made a reservation for 9:30pm, my entire party was ready and on time, however we had to wait over an hour to be seated. I had to setup my birthday decor at the hostess table. When we finally sat down. Menus were given, drinks were ordered. I had a party of 12, it took over 40 mins for drinks. When drinks arrived only 4 of my guest received their drinks and a round of shots.One guest couldn’t even get a glass of water. I actually got up to order a drink from the bar and got the drinks in minutes(the bartender was great) the drinks were even good. Appetizers were also ordered by each guest and those too were over an hour just for only me to receive, none of my guest got their appetizers till 30 minutes later. We finally ordered our entrees which we NEVER received, so no one in my party ate, the COOK had the nerve to ask us to pay for the food once everyone wanted to leave because he was done making it. Mind you it was HOURS later after we ordered. Thank god we all shared our appetizers because we were starving. I brought a cake, they NEVER brought the cake out with candles lit even when asked multiple times, so my party never got to sing happy birthday to me. We had multiple conversation with the manager who did nothing to make the situation better. He was actually partying with other guest, taking shots and doing hookah. I can not make this up. We didn’t leave the restaurant till 1:00am, hardly any food or drinks. This was by far the worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had. It gave classless wit so much potential, the vibe was great except for the music, it was way too loud, you couldn’t even hear the people at your table without yelling. Hopefully they learn from those mistakes and make other guest experiences better than mine, I would NEVER go there ever...

Okay lemme just say the food was mid high key not good at all …I order the salmon sliders and it came with 4 ingredients the salmon lettuce cheese and some type of sauce and I also ordered the truffles fries…so the salmon slider didn’t have any taste at all it just tasted like fish even tho it had cheese and some type of sauce I ask for some dipping sauce which made the sliders way more tasteful and the fries had some type of white substance on top and she said it was cheese but it could have possibly been old cuz it also didn’t have a taste as if it was cheese I could tell it was cheese but nope …no taste at all ….but I’m thankful it wasn’t salt ….and I got the rum punch it’s was in between the line of not enough liquor not enough of punch …and like everything else it didn’t have a taste to it…like everything else I ordered while here …I came when it was happy hour so the drinks was $7 but I highly recommend if ur gonna go here order something else if ur wanna enjoy ur food …I can say tht ..the food got me full but I didn’t finish the fries and i really think it’s no actual kitchen back there… just a microwave …even tho it’s called nostalgia kitchen….one more than when the food came to the table it didn’t have no smell at all …but before you walk into this building you can smell the Jamaican restaurant like 6 buildings down and it wasn’t even near my face but the food was sitting on the table and I couldn’t smell it at all not even when I stuck my nose in it??!!! Ig I can say the server was nice thts about it…but nothing else was to my liking and plus they charged a 20 percent gratuity plus tax plus something else…im like what the hell…wht the helly???….this was my first and last time...