Nellie’s Soulfood Restaurant & Bar

great soul food and for an affordable price. great selection of combos and the service was on point. very hospitable place and it makes me feel like im eating grandma’s cooking i loved the collard greens and mac and cheese (only served fri and sat) the yams were on point. i had the smothered steak and my sis got the snapper w white and dark chicken combo we also got a side of fried oysters and was happy with the whole thing just right for me but i feel any other foodie would love the portions that you could prolly take it home and still enjoy it as leftovers. great spot 4.8 out of 5 for my first experience i’ll update it when i come back w the fiancè

Fried chicken was good. Not great value though.

This is the best soul food I have found. The service was friendly and the food was unbelievable. I didn’t care for their sweet tea but there were zero complaints about anything else. Best greens and gravy ever!

This is one of those places that food is better than the service, but hey sometimes they’re worth the wait. I came here for the first time a few weeks ago and already mentally prepared myself for the «bad» service. We waited at the entrance to get seated for a good few minutes, already I was like oh goodness… what did we get ourselves into. We finally got seated and then of course waited another 10 minutes for our orders to be taken. I ordered the chicken and prawns with salad, corn and fries. The food took forever to come out, but it’s good to know they’re making the chicken fresh each time. (For some reason I’ve noticed that soul food restaurants take a while to make the meals). Our server was really sweet regardless of the slow service. The food itself was good, the chicken was tasty and fried perfectly. Corn was tasty and the fries were fries. The corn bread was enjoyable! I liked that they were not in huge pieces like some other places. The prawns were pretty big and the batter they used (I think cornmeal) was pretty good too. We had a Groupon and was able to use it on the particular day we went. Make sure to read the fine print. Overall, I would come back here in the near future if I had a Groupon deal. The food is good for maybe a once in a long time visit.

Very good soul food. A bit pricey at time but I found a few Groupon’s for this place that really knocked the place down. Just about anything on the menu will leave you satisfied. My personally like the smothered pork chops and the fried fish. If your a fan of soul food this place will definitely satisfy any cravings you might have.

Their customer service was phenomenal. I wish I could give their food five stars but I would give their food 3.5 stars. The ambiance and energy is great! I recommend them!

Great food. Service was a bit slow but overall an enjoyable experience! I loved that it was on such an ambiguous place. Plenty of parking and fun atmosphere once you’re inside!

FIND ANOTHER PLACE TO EAT. YOU WILL THANK ME LATER.
Please don’t waste your time or money. The fried chicken and the red snapper are the ONLY things worth getting. The oysters are over battered and dry. The greens taste like canned Glory greens. Run away from the potatoe salad. It’s runny and absolutely horrible. It’s basically mashed potatoes with mustard and dill pickle juice. No wonder why they refused to let my aunt sample it before she decided to order it. The sweet potatoes and black eye peas are ok but not great enough to satisfy your soul food cravings. The mashed potatoes are just plain. All the sides appear to be canned or frozen but yet they want to charge premium prices as if everything is fresh. The lemonade was $ 5 for a glass of lemon flavored sugar water. Stay away. We ordered two long island ice teas, but there was no coke in it. $ 10 per drink. Although it wasn’t what we ordered we mixed it with the lemonade and made it work. We will absolutely not be coming back here again. Quinette (owner) has a sign at the register stating that if an employee turns the radio volume above a certain number they will be terminated. Instead of worrying about the music levels she should concentrate on the food quality coming out of the kitchen. Oh yeah, I understand they are located next to a cannabis dispensary but my family shouldn’t have to witness your bus boy sitting at the bar looking at his weed as we are seated in the restaurant waiting for our food to arrive. We too should have gotten up and left like some others did but I had to use the Unilocal deal I purchased not to loose my money. Purchasing that deal was a mistake. However $ 22 for the $ 40 credit was helpful since our bill was over $ 100 for four people. I have no problem paying for great food but this was garbage. Save your money.

Please do not tell me that the rumor is true; Did the health dept really come through there and shut them down? Your review helps others learn about great local businesses.
Please don’t review this business if you received a freebie for writing this review, or if you’re connected in any way to the owner or employees.

If I had to rate solely on the fried chicken and fried fish, it would be a 5. However, the sides are not as good so I would give the overall rating a 3.5. Nellie’s is the place I turn to when that craving for soul food creeps up.
I usually go when I have a Groupon for this place and get the 2 item meal to go. It comes with 2 items, 3 sides and cornbread. The fried chicken and fried red snapper is a must — always juicy and tender with good flavor. For the sides, I get the collard greens (flavor is good but is often overcooked), yams and black-​eyed peas. The cornbread can be gummy.

Went back and tried their chittlin dinner again. This time around was totally different. Everything tasted excellent and home cooked. The chitlins was seasoned better, the mac and cheese tasted home-​cooked. This time around I tried the string beans instead of the greens. They were excellent I also received the muffins this time around. Overall everything seem to be improved.

I’m a huge soul food fan, and not just because I grew up with it, but also because I think this food is some of the most «soulful» cooking I’ve ever had. That being said, I am an East coast transplant, so initially, when I moved to the Bay area I was a little bias to east coast soul food cooking.
Nellie’s does a good job of covering the basics of soul food. The seasoning is on point, and the flavor profiles are very good. The fried chicken has a great skin, and the meat is moist. The drawback of this place comes in the service department. In their attempt to provide decent soul food, service has taken a back seat. So no matter how good the green may be, if they get to my table 25 minutes after I order, I’m not going to be all that enthused to partake.
Definitely check it out, if you’re in the area and want good soul food, just prepare yourself with patience.

I’ve been craving soul food for quiet sometime, I’ve had this place bookmarked for a while, I got the catfish, fried chicken, Mac & cheese, greens & mashed potatoes. The Mac & Cheese was cold, but outside of that everything was great,

I was so excited to eat Soul Food, read the review and then tried this place. It was a terrible experience.
The wait for our food was ridiculously long even though the place didn’t have many patrons.
The food was GROSS. I will give them props ONLY on their fried chicken. Everything else was DISGUSTING. The corn with okra was too sweet and it was obviously canned corned, the rice with gravy was too watery, under seasoned and mushy – I had to pour hot sauce on it to make it taste like something – anything, the Mac and cheese was dry and basic as fuck, the baby portion of corn bread was dry too, the mashed potatoes had no butter or cream or anything, and the greens were SWEET! Was that a mistake or do some people make sweet greens? Guhhhh-​rosssss! But worst of all was the Arnold Palmer which tasted like a glass of sugar with artificial lemon in it – basically a glass of diabetes!
Moving on to the «décor,» it was tacky and hideous but whatever… The walls were filthy. The wall where I was sitting had brown splotches of food or something all over it. CLEAN YOUR WALLS! The utensils didn’t even feel like real metal, they were the cheapest utensils I have ever seen in a restaurant. Oh and… PLASTIC PLATES.
Then our waitress was absolutely horrible, she didn’t walk us to our table she just grabbed two menus and set then on the table and walked away while we stood there wondering what the fuck was up because there was a giant WAIT TO BE SEATED sign in front of us. She didn’t give us water but she gave water to all the other tables around us, when she finally came around to our table I asked her if she could bring us water and she’s looked annoyed and said yes and never returned.
Not worth the 50.00 bill.

The server helping us was excellent. She was very helpful. It was a short wait. Once the food came … There was no talking ! My short ribs were mouth watering the Mac and cheese was delicious. Greens yummy and I put my Yams with my cornbread… I will be back soon

First time in Oakland decided to stop by nellie’s, I love the Unilocal family and I should have listened to all the comments and reviews about this place but I decided to go there for myself. The older lady at the register was rude she just swipe my card and walked away. Back to the soul less food the chicken seem like it was on steroids from a cheap Market where they probably bought it from. mashed potatoes with gravy rice with gravy and two tiny cornbread and peach cobbler overall the food taste like crap. I paid 27.58 with a can soda and cup of ice they have no soda machine
Never going back to this overpriced place

Something’s happened with Nellie’s recently. I don’t know if it’s got new ownership or not, but the service and food has gotten worse.
I’ve been going to Nellie’s off and on for years, and last night I went for the first time in over a year with a Unilocal Deal Voucher. The food’s always been pricey and the service’s always been bad at Nellie’s because they’re really slooow. But I’ve always gone back because the food was good. It’s always been par for the course at Nellie’s and several other Soul Food places that I frequent. Really good hearty food with bad service and high prices. You don’t go for that, you go for the really good food. It’s kinda like going to most authentic Chinese restaurants. You go for the delicious food and cheap prices, not for 5 star lick your boots service.
Nellie’s has been offering deals on both Groupon and Unilocal consistently for a couple of years now. Never a good sign. I’m not sure they’re going to make it based on the desperation of using deals to get customers into the restaurant and the service and food that I experienced last night. The restaurant’s already hard to find and located in a commercial building in an industrial zone. People only go to places like this if the food is really good and worth the effort which it isn’t anymore.
The food here used to be really flavorful. Except for the fried chicken, everything that I had last night was really bland and lacking in flavor. Like they forgot to season everything. The one shining star was the fried chicken. Still good. I got the smothered steak and baby back ribs, and both were really tough from overcooking. The seasoning on them and all of the sides were again, really bland and flavorless. Their stuff used to be really good. I just don’t know what happened.
The bad with the service was like a comedy of errors. I ordered my food for takeout, and when I sat down to wait, I looked at my receipt. I noticed that they had charged me 50 cents per order as a «takeout fee». I had no idea what that was, and their menu says nothing about a takeout fee. I also noticed that they had charged me $ 4.79 for a side order of one piece of fried chicken thigh instead of $ 3.79 which is listed both on their printed menus and online menus. Either way, I think they’re really overcharging people for ONE piece of chicken.
I walked up to the cashier to ask about both charges, and she said that the 50 cents per charge was for the takeout packaging. I’ve never heard of such a thing and had never been charged for this before on previous takeout orders. I couldn’t really argue it since there’s nothing printed about it, so I accepted it. Then I asked her about the chicken. She claimed that’s what the computer ordering system charges when you put it in. The good thing was that when I pointed out the actual price on the menu, she refunded me the difference. If I didn’t know better, I would think that they were nickel and diming me to recover some of the lost revenue from the Unilocal Deal. Either way, you’ve got to get this stuff right in a restaurant. I loaded a picture of my receipt for your leisurely perusal.
So the service debacle doesn’t stop here. After I clear the charges up, a guy from the kitchen approaches me and says that they’re out of potato salad as a side. It’s Friday night, you’d think that they’d have a good supply of everything. Oh well, no big deal… I ordered something else. I got my food faster than usual and happily took my meal home. When I got there, I was disappointed to see that they got one of my sides wrong. I had asked for macaroni and cheese which they only have on Fridays. Part of the reason that I went on Friday. Instead, they gave me an order of pinto beans over white rice. I had already ordered pinto beans with this meal. You would think that someone would think that it was weird that the order had essentially a double order of beans, but noone checked.
I’m disappointed because I’ve always liked Nellie’s despite the high prices and slow service, but I don’t think that I’m going back again.

My husband and I decided to visit the Bay Area for our anniversary weekend. We went back and forth on what to eat and decided on Nellie’s via Unilocal.
After reading all of the reviews and seeing photos of the food we decided to indulge in good olé down home Southern Soul food.
We took a chance and scored big time! Ordering the chicken platter with three side dishes; my husband and I was severed a healthy portion of divine southern cuisine that left our tastebuds and stomachs overwhelmed.
RECOMMENDATIONS
All white mean chicken smothered in gravy with black eyed peas, greens and corn and okra.
I had the cook dip my fried chicken in gravy since they only serve the smothered chicken on Saturdays. The chicken was cooked to perfection with the savory flavor of the gravy which delighted my tastebuds.
The black eyed peas boast flavor drenched in butter and Cajun seasoning while the greens and corn and okra complemented each other with just enough flavor to complete the meal of satisfactory proportions.
We also ordered a sampling of peach cobbler to go that turned out to be amazing as well.
If you love soul food Nellie’s is definitely worth visiting. You will not leave disappointed or without a doggy bag for yummy leftovers.
KJ

The first couple of times I have been here I would have given the service a solid 2 and the food a 3 or 4 depending on what was ordered and on whether it was dine-​in or take out. I have had the Turkey Wings with dressing and the Baked chicken with dressing… both very good!
My how things have changed. I have a passion for Oxtails so I decided to snag a Unilocal Voucher and come on by. We sat at the bar, and the bartender seemed hesitant to help us at first. There was a bit of confusion as to what dishes were still available, but once we received confirmation that Oxtails and Mac and Cheese were available… that was all she wrote! The order was placed, and everything was a go. My oxtails, mac and cheese, collard greens, and candied yams were all DAMN GOOD!!! My drink was nice and stiff. We stayed until closing and even got free german chocolate cake and shots of Ciroc!
Will be here more frequently from now on!

I haven’t been to Nellie’s in over five years and the last time I came, the waitress was surly and it took forever to get our food. Today was different.
We asked to switch our table and they were very nice about it. The waitress came right over and told us what they didn’t have which was appreciated (you know how it is when they’re out of stuff that you have your mouth all fixed for). I ordered smothered chicken with a side of yams, Mac n cheese and black eyed peas. We also ordered drinks; my friend had the nerve to ask for a drink menu and mojitos — ha! This ain’t the Elephant Bar! So the bartender made something for us, it was pretty good.
So after about 10 minutes our food came; I was shocked — — the last time it took 45 minutes. The food was good and hot and although the yams were sweet for my tastes, everything was delicious. I don’t know if today was a fluke but Nellie’s seems to have improved on their customer service. Our waitress was very attentive as well.
It won’t be 5 years before I’m back again. Try next week!