Nicky Rottens

Great for a little older awesome music
This place is great if you don’t want to see hoochies dancing stupidly while spilling their drinks and taking selfies. So the age range is a little older. And by a little older, I’m talking 28 – 40. Still has great music and the videos to accompany it on a huge screen above the bar. The service was great the few times we went and next time we’re in San Diego, this will be the first bar we’ll go to.

WHEN YOU GO INTO NICKY ROTTENS BE PREPARED TO SHOUT A LOT.
Seriously, I don’t know if they know the meaning of background music. Pile on top of that the 148 Thousand TVs in the joint (seriously I counted) and there is just a lot of noise.
Besides that the food rundown was pretty regular. Good Sweet Chili wings, pretty plump for pub fair. Good Mozzarella Sticks. Good Fries although they call the seasoned, but i saw and tasted nothing besides potato and salt. The burger is better without the «Rotten Sauce» which was too salty for me. They went off menu and let me order a cup of chili. I assumed they offered this based on the chili cheese fries being on the menu. I guess I con’t complain too much about this since this chili is meant as a french fry topping and not stand-​alone. All I’ll say is that it’s perfectly suited to that role.
One really bright spot was the Karl Strauss Red Trolley beer. I am not a beer drinker but when I eat in pubs I get possessed with the idea that I have to order a beer. This is a nice brew with no aftertaste, it’s a little milder than a Killians. So I have another beer that I can fall back on when I am out.
So if you do the beer and wings you probably have a home run.

AWESOME MUSIC (at least on Sat nights)… the DJ spins all 90’s and early ’00 hits! I could hardly believe it! What a breath of fresh air in this era of EDM!!!
The food and service are both really good, but its the music that will have me coming back.
The drinks are cheap and strong. This place definitely surprised me! Good job Nicky!

Nicky Rottens has great burgers. First visit this week, Danielle recommend the breakfast burger. It was awesome. I went back to get it again three days later and forgot to order it without bacon. When she delivered it, I apologized and asked that it be remade being that I cannot eat pork. Instead of remaking it, the kitchen pulled the bacon off and switched buns on me thinking I wouldn’t notice. Now I had a reason to complain, first fault was mine, second was there’s. Had I had allergic reaction what would have been their response. Danielle returned my burger and had a new one made. Not making the burger was a bad call. Then, to add insult, they took a measly $ 2 off my bill. The smart service recovery would’ve been the whole cost of the burger. I hope the $ 18 burger that could lead to an allergic reaction is worth potential lawsuit for a total avoidable hospital bill…
Danielle, make sure your manager rethinks this one.

I came in for brunch, I had eaten here before a few years ago, breakfast that is, and my memories were of a very good pastrami omelet garnished with a pile of bacon. I was a happy camper back then, and this time around, they did not disappoint as well. But this time I tried there breakfast panini for $ 10.95.
The panni came with a side of breakfast O’Brien type potatoes (
) and the panini was filled with well seasoned fluffy scrambled eggs, several slices of crispy bacon, mozzerella, fresh basil and tomatoes, and the sourdough dressed with a creamy pesto aioli. (
) The panini was great and all the ingredients went well together. The pesto was a very nice touch and the bread soaked it in nicely. (
)
The potatoes were very well seasoned, heavily laden with dried herbs, and very tender. I was quite impress with these potatoes. The added green and red peppers were flavorful and also added nice color. (
) Good potatoes.
I ate down stairs near the bar, and the bar keep tended to me. He was very cool and provided well timed service. It was good to learn they are still provide a good breakfast.

Happy hour here is until 6. Me, my sister and cousin were walking around downtown on a Thursday evening when the lady in the front asked us if we wanted to come in. We asked if they had Happy Hour. She looked at the time and indicated it was 5:53 and we had 7 minutes left. We then asked if we can still order from the Happy Hour menu and she said yes so we decided to give this place a shot.
The lady then proceeded to take us upstairs. We were the only ones there. When our waitress (a different lady) came, it was 5:56. We asked for the Happy Hour menu and she said it was too late. We told her the lady out front said that we can still order from HH menu and she said she’ll come back and ask the manager. When she returned, she said that it was too late. We were all bit annoyed and told her (again) that the lady out front said we can. By then, I was looking on Unilocal for other restaurants that offered HH. I didn’t like how the conversation was going to say the least. I called Fred’s and they said HH was until 7 pm so I told my sister and cousin that we should just go there. As we were about to leave, the waitress came back and said the manager said it was okay to order from the HH.
Normally, it’s not a big deal when it comes to HH, but don’t have one of your employees tell us one thing only to have another tell us something else. That was not cool.
We decided to stay and ordered the following:
Calamari — Good but needed a little more flavoring in the batter.
Sweet potato fries — Delicious
Nachos — Not good. Meat was flavorless.
Wings (mild) — Very good.
Next time (if there is a next time), I’ll stick with the sweet potato fries and wings. I heard the burgers were good there too. Though the food was average, service was not that great. Hope they work on their communication skills.

Knocking this review down by a star.
We went to Nicky Rotten’s last night for dinner, the first time we’d gone in a while. We’d found out online that they’d closed Sloppy Joey’s and merged that space into the existing Nicky Rotten’s space. I’m not entirely sure why they closed Joey’s, but I was sad about it. The Sloppy Joey’s side was the quieter side, and I enjoyed their menu items.
At any rate, we figured it wouldn’t be much different from any other dining experience. We were wrong. Our waitress was friendly, and got our drinks out to us quickly, but everything else was super slow. We had to ask for everything — from silverware to Parmesan cheese — TWICE, no less!
Despite the fact that there were only two other groups upstairs when we arrived, it took forever for our food to arrive. In that time, the dining room started to fill up. And it got loud. It got VERY loud. We had a screaming, screeching, crying child in the booth behind us, and a large party of college-​aged students who were all trying to talk and curse over each other, while drinking their happy hour beers into oblivion (kids these days!)
Once our food finally arrived, I was intensely disappointed. Not only was the flavor just meh, the portion sizes are crazy small. I posted a picture of the meat lasagna my husband ordered with a snide comment about it being actual size. My pasta dish looked impressive, until I realized that the shape of the bowl accounted for a lot of the looks.
They even stopped offering the free bread sticks that you used to get when you sat down in the restaurant. I mean, come on! They weren’t spectacular by any means, and it was ridiculous that you were charged if you wanted extras, but still. It’s always nice to get something for free.
Overall, I’m extremely disappointed by the entire evening. I left feeling hungry, frustrated and mildly deaf in my right ear. I think it’s safe to say that we’ll avoid this spot in the future, or maybe just get their burgers to go. It’s just not worth the frustration, money or time.

Happy Hour from 3pm — 6pm.
Great place to go to for some food and drinks.
Chill environment…

Just this past Sunday I made my journey into NR to test fate and see if I could hammer down the famous «Da Burger Challenge» which is a 5lb total weight plate of food that includes 1.5lbs of sweet fries, 1.5lb special x-​large hamburger bun and then 2lbs of beef cooked to preference. Also has lettuce, onions, cheese, mayo and tomato in there to. I had 1 hour to finish to get my name and picture on the wall of fame. If I did it in 30 or less I got that plus a they foot the bill! Sadly I missed the 30 minute mark by 11 minutes and finished in 41. Still a victory none the less so I was darn happy with my efforts.
The burger was bomb! Super tasty and cooked just right! The bun was the hardest part of the whole feat in that it was pure sponge like carbs just taking up space in my gut bite after bite. It did however soak up every last drop of delicious burger juice from the massive 2lbs of burger the sucker was made with. No way I would have finished the whole burger if it were not as good as it was start to end.
I will also note that their sweet tater fries here are kick ass! Not sure what kind or where they get them but these straight cut style sweet fries are top notch! Served hot and crisp and maybe even hit with some cinnamon spices but I could not tell for sure. Served with syrup and that certainly helped me eat 1.5 pounds of them in just 40 some minutes.
My whole meal was $ 28 bucks which was worth every penny in flavor and in portion lets be honest! Now my only objective is make a return at some point and shoot for the 30 minute mark since I was so close this time.
Looking at the menu I would vouch that all of their burgers are without doubt going to be some of the best you will find in all of downtown. Must have seen 10 or more pass me from the kitchen as I tackled my behemoth of a burger and everyone of them looked awesome!
PS…This place plays kick ass tunes! At least on Sunday evenings they do anyway… gotta love that!

FOOD CHALLENGE — half hour to finish 2.5 pound burger with tons of topping and fries on the side (no subs)! You get your name on the wall and a t-​shirt too, not bad!
Happy hour everyday; 11 – 1 on weekends
½ price apps and drinks — lots of options it’s a good happy hour
Went here on a Sunday morning after a birthday party… the brunch place all our friends went too was overly crowded with a wait and we needed burgers and beers to help with the hangovers… 11am happy hour at this place helped with our choice.
I ordered the famous rottens burger with jalapenos and it was really good no complaints. I like the famous sauce they put on it and I added extra pickles and they brought me a ton, I love when they do this! They know how to do burgers, they do not lie.

Honestly Nicky, I really thought you were going to taste «rotten» but I was definitely fooled by your name, especially at 9:30am in the morning. I had to set an alarm clock to wake up early for brunch since we were trying to beat the 10am football playoff games frenzy.
Our original plan was to go to La Puerta, but it wasn’t open at 9am! So we walked around the empty streets of Gaslamp. (But really?! Who wakes up this early on a SUNDAY morning? Everybody must be hungover) Anyways, most places were closed, so we decided to go to Barley Mash, but then got stopped by a Nicky Rotten salesperson. He was trying to get us to try the restaurant, I told him to hold up and check Unilocal to see if this place was good, and 4 stars! I was already sold. And the sales person kinda undersold that it was a sports bar with TVs (that’s what we wanted)
BRUNCH FOOD:
–Ribeye steak & Eggs: $ 9.95, for reals?! Is this dog meat or something? hahaha. Surprisingly, it was REALLY good (for the price). It was an actual ribeye, tasted great, had good flavors, all worth the $ 9.95. Tasted BETTER than those cheapass steakhouses and some good steak places as well! –_​-​) The eggs were decent, and the potatoes were seasoned well, lots of food for the price. Great brunch/​breakfast!
–Bloody Mary: $ 5! OH MAN, it was spicy coming down. I think she put tooooooo much tabasco. Shouldn’t have done that because it slowed our drinking down. It wasn’t bad though, just towards the end, all the spice is sitting there… bleh!
Nicky, you should change your name to Nicky Spoil me Rotten! It was a good breakfast feasting. Definitely full.