Nova Bar & Restaurant

I like their pizza selection and their wings. Server was also nice. Main plus is they actually have a decent wine list for a divey place. I think they’re closing down though :/

This place serves tots with their eggs benedicts AND they have bottomless mimosas. Literally bottomless. I never saw the bottom of my glass because they were constantly refilling it. They have TVs around the bar for sports fans and the restaurant never got too crowded. Didn’t even have to wait for a table! Good spot for bottomless mimosa brunch with friends since the atmosphere is pretty relaxed.

Gross place. Horrible food. Cappy service. Place smells like sewer. Cock roach infested for sure.

I always love my experience at Nova. Great tots, nice bartenders, not expensive, good martinis and beer.

Good prices, interesting tap list, good staff. This place is nothing to write home about but a good spot to get a drink. Not much more to say here.

This was quite a star find. It’s a bar, f’sure, but because of the fact that they serve decent food, we can take our baby in there. Woop woop!
Child-​friendly dive bars++

Cute place with decent food. The blackberry mojito was really good… not too sweet. The Greek salad had a little too much vinaigrette but was still ok. Really liked the shrimp skewers but mostly bc of the spicy green sauce that came with it. The lobster quesadilla was ok… Not much lobster obviously but still good. The salsa was kinda bland so using the shrimp green sauce was a better alternative. I would come here again but mostly bc it’s close to me and the food is good enough.

Bottomless mimosa brunch here is the best! You never have to wait, they don’t skimp on the mimosas, and the food doesn’t disappoint. It’s nothing gourmet or fancy, just good old fashioned divey breakfast with a super nice waitress. My friends and I have made brunch at nova a monthly tradition for when we’re in the mood for a good champagne buzz.

After determining that the brewery next door is much better at making beer than they are at food or cocktails I gave Nova a couple of try’s. My first trip I had one of their Benedicts. It was cold and I’m pretty sure the Holendaise was straight out of a can. The second, and last, visit I had Corned Beef Hash and Poached Eggs. The eggs were over cooked, the hash was salty and full of grissel. The menu said it was served with Holendaise which was not presented.
The $ 12 Bloody Mary is nothing special and not worth the money. In addition the bartender, who is very nice, wears a hat behind the bar. This is illegal in many states, and always bad luck. Nova has some good ideas, they should find staff who can execute them. The search for Sunday Brunch continues.

These are the plates which I tried so far:
Baked Mac & Cheese: phenomenal, very cheesy and tasty! Would definitely reccommend
Parmesean Truffle Fries: I would definitely say these are somewhat addictive. But honestly, how bad can you go with truffle fries?
Risotto: I decided to try this since I’m vegetarian. However, I was truly upset by the rubberness of the mushrooms and the taste was somewhat lacking. There was no salt or season, and rather it was dry. I felt like there was cream but absolutely no taste. Needs some work.
Fettuccine: I would say this is not bad. I have definitely tried better entrees. It was creamy and tasty. I would only wish it would be a little more spicier! But overall it was okay.
Overall, a thumbs up for side plates and drinks but not so much for entrees.

Their Mac n’ Cheese, green eggs and ham pizza with a spicy Bloody Mary was really delicious. The service was great along with the bar tenders wisdom, which made the afternoon delightful with my friend. Will definitely come back to try something else

Nova bar is a good semi-​dive. They have interesting beers on tap, and their prices are good for Soma.
They have solid bar food too.
Though 21^st Amendment is next door, I always push for Nova, because it’s less crowded and the food is pretty great for the price.

The only reason to come here is the bottomless mimosas. This is a bar, not a restaurant, but I did like my corner beef with poached eggs (though my eggs were over cooked). But the mimosas made everything taste fantastic so ultimately a fantastic ladies night!

I was here this past weekend with my family to grab brunch on game day. Overall, we had a pretty bad experience. It was disappointing because my parents had been here before and felt differently. We were all just starving so we put up with it, but service was nothing special, orange juice was disgusting and the food was not good. My mom was served bacon that was completely cold and when she asked for warm bacon is was obvious they put some in the microwave for her. Most of us has luke-​warm/​cold tator tots with our breakfast too. The booth we were sitting in was covered in dead leaves from the window plant and the floors were dirty.
I like all of the giants stuff in the place and looks like it could be a pretty fun bar, but I can’t find motivation to come back anytime soon.

This place is bomb! Went here before a giants game and had brunch with bottomless mimosas. The eggs Benedict is amazing. And not badly priced either. I recommend the black stone Benedict. Bacon & eggs what could be better?

After running our half marathon, we decided to have brunch here as it was roughly equidistant between the hotel we were staying at and where our friends live. Nova’s got a nice big space and is probably a solid place to hang out when there’s a sports event going on — there’s a decent amount of Giants memorabilia hanging around. That said, it’s nice and quiet if you want brunch here when it opens on Sunday, so we were able to get the circular front booth. Our waitress was nice, giving us time to think over the order, and she seemed to have a solid grasp of the brunch options.
That said, the brunch was a bit inconsistent. For those who like bottomless mimosas, you can hook yourself up with that, but I was less than impressed with concentrated orange juice being served with ice cubes in a large glass. However, I was a big fan of the chorizo scramble — the eggs are mixed in well with the spiced sausage, and the avocado and goat cheese add a bit of a richer, creamier element to the mixture. It actually comes off as one of the smaller brunch dishes, mainly because the tater tots (freshly fried and quite tasty) take up a lot of real estate. While that was good, my fiancée’s corn beef hash (which apparently is one of the more popular brunch dishes) was disappointing — not really much of a hash at all, and the cubes of corned beef didn’t really taste all that fresh. The poached eggs and hollandaise on top couldn’t really change that, which was disappointing.
In all — while there were good aspects of brunch — and the prices are quite solid — the food overall came off as inconsistent. It’s also hard to take a brunch place as seriously when you get served Minute Maid with ice… that’s a big no-​no in my book. If I were to come back and eat in the neighborhood, I’d definitely make it a boozy one next door at 21^st Amendment.

I really liked this place a lot.
From the get go, the waitress was super friendly and patient in dealing with our group of 12 indecisive and loud post-​football game crowd.
The food was very very good too. We ordered a couple of appetizers — the calamari, the crap tower, and the mac and cheese. Each one of them were on point. I loved the tartness of the calamari, but was surprised that they were mainly crumbs instead of whole pieces of rings/​tentacles. The mac and cheese was AMAZEBALLS.
For a drink, I had the Trust Fund. I was a biased fan because I love St. Germain, but it truly was a fabulous drink. Completely refreshing.
I had the steak salad cooked medium rare… it was delicious.
I’d totally come back here again, and can’t wait to. We initially tried to get a table at 21^st Amendment and after they told us we’d have to wait an hour and a half, we wandered down the street and happily found this gem.
Thanks for the great customer service and the great food!

Had brunch here randomly. This place has delicious food for a bar! We had the apple French toast, the steak sandwich and the Mac and cheese! The Mac and cheese and tater tots are DELICIOUS!!!
Now I know we’re to go before or after Giants games!

One star for great bottomless mimosas. One star for convenient location near ballpark. One star for the amazing tater tots. Less one star for the food.
Everyone’s eggs were overcooked and when they say it comes with a side of fruit, they mean a strawberry and orange slice.
Our server was really friendly until we asked her to split our bill between five people. But she always had our drinks filled and we didn’t feel pressured to a time constraint like some other bottomless mimosa places.
This is a great place to go before a Giants day game! Ordering the tater tots is a must.

A nova is like a nuclear explosion of a white dwarf star, or it at least refers to a PBS show I like. But it sure doesn’t identify a great place to eat in SoMa. Jamie W. and I finally gave it a try when we saw that 21^st Amendment was packed to the seams one Wednesday evening. Nova, on the other hand, was nearly empty save for a couple of tech-​oriented barflies disagreeing about Microsoft’s capabilities in entering the hardware market. Even a bargain-​priced prostitute in support hose would have been bored by the dialogue. We tried to sit outside of earshot in order to attempt to have a meal in peace. We were surprised that Nova offered more than just bar food with pork chops, fried chicken, risotto and lamb meatballs offered up on the menu.
We were looking for something on the lighter side, so we stuck with the salads and appetizers. Jamie went for the $ 8 Greek Salad, which was a pretty standard mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, bell pepper, olive bits, feta cheese, and red onion on a few sprigs of greens and drowning in a lemon-​oregano vinaigrette which was tasting quite a bit on the sour side that evening (see photo). A little better were the $ 8 Spicy Chicken Wings, which were lacquered in whatever sauce they created to give it some kick (see photo). Too sticky for my taste. I had the $ 6 bowl of Slow Roasted Cream of Tomato Soup, which was tongue-​blistering hot. There were three greasy cheese bites doubling as croutons, but I just didn’t like the taste of them at all — and I usually love any kind of melted cheese (see photo).
I have to say the biggest disappointment was the $ 10.50 Classic Caesar Salad with Blackened Chicken (see photo). The hearts of romaine were drenched in the over-​creamy dressing, and worse of all, the chicken was quite near inedible since its blackened condition made for an arid piece of poultry that couldn’t be resuscitated even if that bargain-​priced prostitute gave it mouth-​to-​mouth. It’s difficult for me not to finish a Caesar salad, but sure enough, I left a lot of it on the plate, a sorry situation that wasn’t even questioned by our waitress who simply took the plate away upon my request. There was a pervasive sense of indifference about the place that made me realize this was, after all was said and done, a bar that just happens to serve food.
FOOD — 2 stars… gee, it’s not a good sign when they screw up pretty standard salads
AMBIANCE — 2.5 stars… dark, mostly quiet and not much fun
SERVICE — 2.5 stars… friendly at first but appearance became more and more sporadic as the evening progressed
TOTAL — 2 stars… Nova? More like Novacain… no bargain-​priced prostitutes were harmed during the writing of this review