Nico's Taco and Tequila Bar — Restaurant in Minneapolis

With my reviews of places, I try my best to be as reasonable and weigh in different aspects of the restaurant. There are generally a couple of components that go into the grade: Taste of food and drinks, customer service, and the environment (is it clean, does the decor match the brand, etc). Anywho, onto the review.

Nico's Taco and Tequila Bar's amazing food and drinks is largely diluted by poor customer service, which was really disappointing. Here is my review in-depth.

Food and Drink: 3.5 out of 5 stars I ordered the lengua (tongue) and the scallop tacos. I have to say that the highlight of the meal was the lengua taco. The tongue was cooked to perfection and the taste of the meat harmonized so well with the other ingredients within the taco. I love scallops, and I thought the scallop taco was good (because scallops are bomb), but not great. I think having the peppers julienned really complicated the texture of the taco when enjoyed as a whole for me.

I had one of their margaritas and was a little disappointed, since the restaurant is known for having great margaritas. While it was a solid drink, the ratio of lime in the drink was a tad bit too high. This created a really sour alcoholic mixture, but thankfully I like sour things :).

Environment: 3 out of 5 stars It really felt like home at this place (maybe because it is literally a house converted into a restaurant), and I really liked that about this restaurant. The main issue for me is the temperature within the restaurant, which was a little too hot for me in a building like that. Don't get me wrong, I love the heat. I could walk around in 95 degree weather and enjoy it. I'm not sure if I would want to do that within a building, however. It was probably a good 80 degrees in there.

Customer Service: 2 out of 5 stars

Customer service impacts the image of your brand and it also has an impact on how people enjoy your food. It makes sense intuitively that if people aren't treated correctly, their perception of the food and the restaurant will most likely change as well. I'm very patient and lenient with customer service. I will never dock points for something like "the waiter/waitress wasn't smiling" or "the waiter/waitress didn't look like they were super happy and cheerful." I will however dock points for being outright rude, not providing an explanation for food being late, and for not providing the basic essentials for customer service (checking in on tables at least once, filling up waters every so often, etc). This is a major reason as to why the overall rating drops to 2 stars. Here are some reasons for this rating on customer service.

1. The waiter/waitress never really checked in at our table to see how things tasted or if we needed anything else. She maybe checked once, but that's moreso because she was picking up a plate. Also, waters were refilled maybe once. It was 80ish degrees in the restaurant.

2. There was no explanation for how long our food took to get to our table. It took nearly 1 hour for us to get our food, and we only ordered tacos. This is usually remedied if a waiter/waitress checks in on the table, which they did not do much of in the first place.

3. Our restaurant trip lasted two hours, when it probably could have been shaved...

While I've rated this a 4 star, I wish to point out it's actually 3.5 stars. There were a few good hits but some bad misses too here.

We are in town for 2 nights and wanted to check this place out so got here. FANTASTIC vibe (even though, last night it wasn't super crowded which is great but it was probably because it was a cold night).

We ordered a bunch of different things.

Let's get the good out of the way first. The Enchilada Rojo was FANTASTIC. It had a great robust flavor (could be more robust though) and a great portion overall. What could be done way better is one of two things:

This came where the tortilla was laid flat on the plate and then the insides of an enchilada were on top. Due to the heat, the tortilla got stuck to the plate which is not user friendly to eat at all. I think with the amount of sauce (lack of), this could have been served up rolled.

OR, they could have put in a lot more sauce to prevent the tortilla from sticking so badly to the plate.

Since the rice is made in chicken broth, my wife couldn't eat that but the beans were vegetarian. I got some rice and stole some beans from my wife. This was SO DAMN GOOD. It was simple, fresh and full of flavor. Honestly, this was the best part of the entire meal.

We started with the Pico De Gallo Uruapan. While on the menu, it does not mention lime/lemon as part of this, I did miss the slight sourness of the fruit. What I did find disappointing about this was the chips to pico de gallo proportion. The pico de gallo portion was in a tiny bowl and the chips we got was enough for at least 2.5 times the portion of the pico de gallo we got. My wife said that Americans eat more chips so it made sense. So while I may be wrong, $13 for that was at least 40% more pricy than it should have been in my opinion.

I got the shrimp and scallop taco and a pastor taco. Sadly, both were very underwhelming. Nothing special about them at all other than the fact that the shrimp and scallop were beautifully cooked (I mean to get it as correct as they did here requires exceptional skills). However flavor wise, they fell way flat. The shrimp and scallop seemed like they were not seasoned at all. The rest of the ingredients too just lacked flavor. While the Pastor was a bit better, it still did not have the 'umph' you find in a good pastor.

Service was not bad, not the best. We had to wait a bit while they were not terribly busy which was ok. Staff however was very friendly.

Overall for me, this was a one and done deal. I wish them luck. I think they need to rework the flavor portion...

Celiacs beware... This was the first time that we had ever been to Nico's. The atmosphere was super fun with the Christmas theme. There were lights throughout the restaurant, as well as Christmas music playing. I would say the music was a bit loud, but other than that the song selections were fun. The food was amazing, and I thought that the prices were reasonable for the amount of food that you got, especially for a city restaurant. Restaurant. However, we were disappointed with the service. I cannot eat gluten, it makes me very ill. I had wanted to order the seafood tacos, and I asked if they were made with flour or corn. The server told me that they come on flour tortillas but you can order them on corn tortillas. Immediately after she said that, I said I would like two seafood tacos but I would like them on corn tortillas, because I cannot eat flour due to celiac. She could hear me because she commented to the effect that she would would prepare the tacos with corn tortillas. As we were sitting and waiting for our food, we noticed that our waitress had taken a shot of tequila along with the bartender. When we received the food, I did not think to double-check that the tacos were on corn tortillas. I ate the first one and thought that the flavor seemed off. As we're eating, she took a second shot of tequila with a bartender. When she came over to the table, I asked her if they were corn or flour tortillas that I was eating. She said that they were flour tortillas. I asked her if she remembered to put in my order as corn tortillas. She said she could not remember if she did or not. She then asked if I'd like something else. I said no, because at this point I've already consumed the gluten. I made a comment that gluten makes me sick, and I cannot eat it. Her response was a carefree attitude, "Sorry about that." In my opinion it was an unapologetic statement. For the past two days now I have been so sick. It was a very disappointing end to a restaurant with a fun atmosphere and good food. Due to this issue, and the insensitivity of the waitress, I will not be returning. I'm curious about her tequila shots, had she had any before we ordered our food? Is that possibly why the order was incorrect, and her apology was not...