Island Spice Jamaican Restaurant — Restaurant in San Diego

San Diego is generally short on purveyors of Jamaican cuisine, so we need to be nice to the few we have. "Island Spice" will return the favor, I promise. Easy to get to, on the corner of College and University, Island Spice is a humble "mom 'n pop" kinda spot that, despite being popular with hungry students from nearby SDSU, would never be confused as a trendy or hip restaurant. It is an esteemed neighborhood joint that serves large portions of great food at a reasonable price.

On my recent visit, I had the large "Jerk Chicken" plate, which consisted of half a chicken - breast, wing, drumstick, and thigh in addition to a large heap of rice and red beans that no single human could finish in one sitting, a generous portion of savory sautéed cabbage mixed with onions and peas, and golden fried plantains of the like I haven't had since my last Caribbean vacation.

The chicken is marinated and treated with a jerk rub of pimento (aka Jamaican allspice), nutmeg, and chilies, while coated with a thin semi-sweet sauce. There is a smoky flavor from the sauce caramelizing and burning while it is cooked over the grill, combining with thyme to impart into it all a slight woodsy bitterness that is not unpleasant. All pieces of the chicken - not just the dark parts - were cooked to an ideal level of juiciness.

As good as the chicken was, the unquestionable highlight was the jerk sauce. It has a delightful piquancy to it - by no means incendiary, but rather a slow, steady amount of heat that delectably lingers in the mouth like the remnants of a sultry kiss. The rice and bean mixture acts as a fantastic sponge to help shovel every last drop of surplus sauce into your gullet, which you will most certainly need to do.

There are other interesting items on Island Spice's menu, including oxtail and curried goat, but it's going to take a lot of will-power for me to come back here and NOT order the jerk...

Island Spice has a lot going for it; but the questionable business practices, and sub-par customer service really helps to ensure that this business model will remain a niche in the communities that it occupies. Let's get into why:

The Good: The food is good. It's worth coming back for, but that's kind of the problem...

The Bad: There is no reason to be out of your most popular items nearly 3 hours before you close every day. You know from the day before that the demand for your most popular good outpaced your supply, so wasting the customer's time by failing to do simple 'supply/demand' calculations and ensure that you have (at least) enough supply to satisfy a day's worth of demand is inexcusable. It's worse than providing nothing at all.

The Business: Are there any business people working here? Is there anyone who can actually cook? Your business is surrounded to the north, south, east and west by grocery stores. If nobody in your establishment can go one block over and replenish the ingredients for your most marketable item a full 3 hours before you close, than I file that under incompetence and laziness. Nobody wants to get in their car, travel to your store, get out, put on a mask and deal with your largely apathetic customer service staff just to be told that you were too lazy to be able to serve your most marketable item, week in and week out.

I'm glad that the folks who are ordering online are getting better results, but try not to forget Island Spice: this community made you, and it can unmake you just the same. I'm right around the corner, and so are a lot of other customers of yours. If you take us for granted,...

We ordered online after heard some good things about this place. An hour after we placed our order I call in because the food hadn't arrived. The lady on the phone was very rude and said "They picked it up, it's not my problem." Then she hung up. I tried to convince myself they were busy and her poor composure on the phone was an oversight. 30 minutes later I receive a call from the delivery driver telling me he's outside. I go outside and no one is there. The driver asks why I don't open the door and I tell him he's at the wrong house. After 2 minutes of him talking over me and insisting he's at my door he says "Oh, I put the wrong address in my GPS." 25 minutes later he arrived. I take the food inside and find it's cold and the order is wrong. I call the restaurant again to voice my concerns about my order. The lady on the phone is very rude again. She tells me once "The food leaves its not our problem. It was hot when we packed it." When I tell her the order was wrong she puts another lady on the phone who starts yelling "He's not our driver, the food was hot." I tell her they got my order wrong and she yells "I don't have the ticket he took it. You got your food it's not my problem." Then she hung up. The food was cold and the plantains were hard and dry. I was very disappointed. The food was way too expensive to not offer to fix our order. I'm sticking with Caribbean Taste...