Nick's Pizza and Bakery Made in Oakland — Restaurant in Oakland

A great place to buy a good solid breakfast or lunch / dinner food. They have great recipes, excellent locally sourced ingredients and good service. They are one of the better restaurants with regard to marking the ingredients / characteristics of each dish / item. Gluten free bread and pizza crust that actually are readily available and used in many of the pre-configured pizzas and other dishes. Vegetarian and vegan dishes are also well marked. I definitely recommend the thin sourdough pizza crust with any number of the different pre-configurations of inventive flavors, utilized by the chefs each week depending on what fresh ingredients are in season and available from the local farmers who are selling directly to the restaurant. Pizza slices are large and filling without being greasy at all. This restaurant has the added benefit of being able to purchase pizza by the slice in addition to whole pies. They heat each piece in the oven right before serving, so you would never know that it was made a few hours previously and then held in status in anticipation of the constant string of guests. If their is a line, do not worry - it always moves forward quickly and service is definitely fast, friendly and reliable. Their baked goods are top notch as well. The olive loaf is a definite must try. And they consistently have the most amazing dark molasses ginger cookie! I am not usually a sweets person, but their ginger molasses cookies are criminally excellent. Not too sweet, perfectly chewy / crisp and a good strong flavor of both the ginger and the molasses. In addition, their breakfast sandwiches are very satisfying and well made. The business is a worker owned collective and the pride / happiness level is definitely evident. I always feel good about my interactions with the several people behind the front counter. They are very knowledgeable about every item (because they all have helped in the development process for each recipe) and they are patient when faced with so many yummy choices. Check the website for a current pizza menu including the special combinations for each month. Daily combinations are also available but not announced in advance or online. However, each one I have tried is both surprisingly delicious and inventive. Definitely not toppings I would ever think of trying myself! Large outdoor dining area is great for small groups, people with pets on leashes and customers who ride bicycles and need secure parking while eating. They are not open 7 days a week unfortunately, so check their hours before swinging by for a bite....

I've had been all over the country and I've been to high-end spots and low and spots and I've had the tragedy of pain for a slice of pizza for 14 bucks and I've done the questionable thing I've paid for a slice of pizza for a buck.

So I saw this spot and told the kids. This is where we're going to eat lunch now. There is no parking so we had to park in the residential street parking which wasn't that difficult. We just got lucky I think because it was a cold afternoon but there was tons of outdoor seating and let me tell you when I saw the prices. I was kind of skeptical but the place is super clean, super organized and everything is really well labeled. But when we got our pizzas we ordered probably like five slices. But they ended up giving us like double the slices and you know my partner never questions the price of anything. So he thought paying 40 bucks for five slices or whatever it was was fair and I just thought well we'll take these slices home and this will be our dinner.

These slices were phenomenal. I sat here outside in the cold eating it and thinking to myself. I could have my son's birthday party here. These slices are so good. I could convince my family who lives 100 miles away to come here to have a slice of pizza outside on a patio table and you know what they're going to b** about it until they have that slice and when they eat it, they're going to be like. Yep, it was worth the 100 mile drive.

I've been to New York and had pizza. I've been to Chicago and had pizza. I've been to Detroit and had pizza and let me tell you I'm just so baffled and just blinded and so excited that there is a place that has such good pizza and it is so close to my work that I'm literally like shaking and crying because like I have the opportunity to have good pizza in my life and it's such a good price like a slice of pepperoni was like four bucks. I took a picture of it. I don't remember it right now as I'm writing but all the prices were fair.

Bottom line, this is good pizza. You need to come fight the parking come walk. Do what you got to do to come here but this...

So done with this place. I have a newborn baby and the grandma is visiting. After a long day with the baby she mentions pizza. Though I had previous bad experiences with Nick's in the past, I thought I should give them another chance.

After several phone calls of no one answering the phone, I went to Grub Hub. I order a pizza with eggplant, the guy calls me 45 minutes later and says he has no eggplant, and what do I want to do. After realizing options are very limited for a vegetarian style pizza with tomato sauce (I gotta have tomato sauce), I then request a half pepperoni and half regular cheese pizza with basil, and he says, "sorry, no substitutions." I couldn't believe it. Here I am starving, already waited 45 minutes, you then tell me you can't serve what I ordered from your menu, and then you deny a simple substitution to make things right? I could understand not allowing substitutions at the onset, but you should go the extra mile for the customer if you run out of ingredients and wait so long to notify the customer.

So you're pizza is not that good. It's really salty and usually burnt. I wanted to love it, but your customer service is seriously lacking. Folks, this place just doesn't have it's act together. If you want to experience excellent customer service and good pizza, I would recommend Emilia's Pizza (located just down the street from Nick's), or go to Bobby G's and get a nice microbrew to go with it. Both places have consistent quality pizza, and friendly customer service. You're nothing without your customers, and these places know this. Apparently Nick's thinks it is my privilege to eat there. Well, it's not. I see you have a good following, but you won't last if you operate this way.

I should mention that I called Grub Hub, who after calling Nick's, apologized for their terrible service, and gave me $5. They stated Nick's was unapologetic and unwilling to...