The Nicollet Diner — Restaurant in Minneapolis

I travel for a living and am in town for a few days for business. I saw this location after searching for Diners and thought I'd try it. Walking outside of the diner towards the entry door, it appeared totally empty inside and I expected it to be closed. Entering the building, the foyer is the entry to a Burlesque Show and diner entrance to the left, with no door separating the foyer from the diner. When I entered at 10am, there were two patrons at the (actual) bar and no one else. As I walked in to sit down, a server rushed towards me to guide me to the bar, which I refused due to my occupation. He then attempted to sit me at a counter, which I couldn't due to a foot injury. I opted to sit at a table close to where I was and was told "We reserve that table for large parties, and you can't sit there." Again, I was one of only 3 people in the entire diner. The coffee is served in a plastic mug, similar to what a Hot Toddy or Molted Wine would be served on the street. The server insisted it was glass, despite the dull plastic "rink" sound and the plastic molding marks on the handle and mug opposite the handle. I will normally drink 2-3 cups of coffee at diners for breakfast, but barely drank a full cup of this due to the horrible taste from the plastic mug. The server did refill my cup once from about half full, but took my cup from me to refill it instead of bringing a coffee pot to my table. The Denver Omelett was okay, but bland in flavor. I optioned for the Corned Beef Hash instead of hash browns or house potatoes, for $4.95 extra. When served, the "Corned Beef Hash" was nothing except hash browns with a sprinkling of beef chunks in it. It was more of a "Hash With Beef" than "Corned Beef Hash". When I questioned it to the server, I was told I was wrong and had no clue. The glass of water was served in a plastic cup with a torn up drinking lip. The entire upper rim appeared as if it was placed in a garbage disposal and snagged my lips when drinking out of it. All of the above issues were brought to the servers attention in a nice, respectful manner. He simply shrugged and stomped off as if "offended". The bill had a 3% Health and Wellness charge applied to it. When I questioned it, the server told me "The city of Minneapolis imposed it", which is incorrect. This is a charge which the restaurant imposes on their guests and is not disclosed ahead of time. Unless you want to eat mediocre to horrible food which is reinvented, be overcharged for it when it can't be prepared correctly, and drink coffee from fake glass tasteless mugs all while dealing with the high maintenance attitude of burlesque performers who work as food servers during the day, I highly recommend staying away. I travel all over the country for a living, and this has to be the lowest ranked diner for breakfast I've ever...

It was our first time dining at Nicollet Diner, and it will be the last. When we walked in, we walked past the host stand and asked whoever was standing there "ok if we sit at the bar?" And they said "yep", so we proceeded to sit at the bar. The diner only had a couple people there. Noticably slow. The bartender (Mike) came up to us after blatantly ignoring us for several minutes, and rudely greeted us with "i see you decided to forego the 'please wait to be seated sign!" (The person as the host stand must not have even worked there). We work in service industry, so we understand bad days and could look past the initial sass... so we ordered our drinks; a mimosa, a coffee, and a water (the warer never made it), and while he was standing there, my husband tried to order a meal and Mike rudely (again) cut him off, wouldn't let him order, and make an annoyed face toward another person sitting at the bar. While we were waiting for him to come back for us to order, another person walked in and sat themselves at the bar, to which that person was greeted happily, even though they also decided to "forego the please wait to be seated" sign. We finally got to order, and when we got our food (biscuits and gravy) he didnt give us any silverware, the food was sub par, and there was a black hair in it (my hair is blonde, and my husband has no hair, as he is going through chemo therapy, so it couldn't have been our hair that landed in our food). When we brought it to Mike's attention, he didn't even apologize and just said "do you want me to have it remade?" Which at this point, we just wanted to leave, so we declined.

This was one of the worst dining experiences we've had. One of the rudest bartenders/servers we've ever encountered.

So...

The atmosphere got 4 stars because the music was kind of loud and I couldn't hear my wife. I am sure someone was enjoying it. This is a personal pet peeve of mine. The dinner is right across the street from the Minneapolis Regency. That's why we ended up there. I'm really happy we did.

Our server was friendly and quick. We couldn't have asked for more. The prices are a little up there. But that's an issue everywhere. You will pay a couple of dollars more than Denny's. But the food is far better.

I got breakfast. I always get breakfast at diners. I love breakfast. I'm terrible at cooking it. I can't cook 🥚 in my hotel room anyway. I ate a ton of 🥚 for breakfast at the hotel 🏨 breakfast buffet. But I still wanted breakfast. And a chicken 🐔 quesadilla appetizer my wife and I shared.

The 🐔 quesadilla appetizer was fantastic. It was nothing like a Taco Bell quesadilla. It had big prices of 🐔 that you could tell came from a chicken 🐔. Sauteed onions, and jack 🧀. It usually has peppers, but I got it without peppers. It was pretty big for an appetizer for 14.99. My breakfast was biscuits and gravy. Can you believe I don't have an emoji for that? 2 eggs any way you want them. And potatoes. Home fries, hash browns, or... I don't remember. I got hash browns. The biscuits were pretty good. They aren't as good as biscuits in the South, but they were good biscuits. I was surprised by the gravy. It was really good. It was sausage gravy. My grandma called it skillet gravy. She used the skillet she cooked the sausage in to make the gravy. I expected white gravy with sausage in it. Their gravy was a great surprise for $16.99

I can't recommend The Nicolette Diner more. I am still staying in the hotel. I want to go...