619 Spirits North Park — Restaurant in San Diego

We came here Saturday because I had a groupon and it is right around the corner from us. When we arrived, the two bartenders greeted us. We got our seats and one bartender took our drink order, water with lots of ice. She brought it over right away and we ordered. My husband had a very specific order with substitutions and was told it was no problem.

We were chatting about all sorts of things and, after a while we both commented that it was taking a really long time for the food. We had been there for about 28 minutes. About 5 minutes later, one of the gals came out to ask for clarification on one of the dishes. Then about 5 minutes later she brought out my meal, which was incorrect. And then about 5 minutes after that, they brought out my husband's meal, which was also incorrect.

We called the gal over and told her his meal was incorrect and I told them mine was. They took both meals and said they would prepare the correct meal for me and gave my husband the menu to choose again.

Then the other bartender, Samantha came over and apologized to us for all the confusion amd incorrect meals. She told us she had comped our meals and gave us a $15 gift card. She told us she would really like us to give them another try.

So, after all this, I have to say, Samantha knows good customer service. We were pretty exasperated with our experience and she completely made things better.

We will absolutely give them another try, this time for dinner. And we thank Samantha for giving our experience a positive ending. I have posted pictures of the meals we got initially - mine is eggs Benedict with rosemary potatoes and my husband's was a grilled chicken burger with spinach, avocado and mayonnaise. They look very good and the potatoes that came with mine are superb!

*Update - we received a personal note from the owner, Nick. I am really impressed that he takes my review seriously and took the time to...

I went back and forth on if I was going to even share this, but after a few days my experience is still bothering me. If I was the owner I'd want to know so here goes nothing.

I've been here a handful of times and always enjoyed everything about the restaurant. However, I went in this Tuesday (4-30-24) and had one of the worst service experiences I've ever seen, and I worked in the industry for a number of years. Our server took over 20 min to greet us when we showed up. Over the next two hours our server stopped by two-three times and left without closing us out or giving us any heads up. She forgot to put in drinks, forgot to put in food, and the dipped on a $200 ticket. Cool.

So we were left to close out with the bartender, who had been taking shots all night and could barely talk at this point. Not only that, but he was extremely impolite and almost aggressive a couple of times. At one point I asked him for another drink before last call. He looked at me, said something along the lines of "your server can take care of you" and then proceeded to sit next to my friends (who are girls) and offered to bring them free drinks, and was being handsy. Not in a super inappropriate way, but like in a drunk bar way, you know what I mean? Touching their shoulders, putting his arm around them, etc..

The contact wasn't the problem even though it was unnecessary. The problem was how rude and awkward this made the night out when me and my friends are just trying to have a good time. I know that trivia was finishing up when we first showed up, and I kept that in mind throughout the entire night. As bad as this was, trivia wasn't an excuse and had ended hours before.

The next time I'm going to go out and spend $200 on a dinner with my friends, I'll be going...

Edit: I have updated my rating from 1 to 3 stars because the owner personally contacted me and helped resolve my billing issue. The restaurant was also transitioning to a outdoor space due to the new Covid policies, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. My original review is below.

Went here a couple weeks ago. Food was okay, drinks were okay. I liked the pickle vodka drink.

The service was terrible however. Most of the time I was there I had no food or drink in front of me and it was impossible to get the attention of the waitress. She would pop out of the building for a few seconds only to disappear back inside without looking up. The few times someone came by they seemed confused and surprised that my drinks, which I had never had the opportunity to order, hadn't arrived.

Even with my poor experience, I was content to just not come back. What convinced me to write this review was the discovery that I was double charged by 619 Spirits. When I asked to close out, the waitress was once again confused. I had started a tab which she could not find in their system so she gave me a bill from memory and said "it's less than it would have been." Indeed, a couple items had been removed and the bill was less than it would have been. I was pretty anxious to leave at this point so I paid cash, not wanting my credit card to disappear for eternity. Now upon checking my credit card statement I can see that my full tab was charged in addition to the cash I paid.

My fault for trusting these folks with my money and not keeping...