Nicks Bar and Grill

Tuesday 11:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Wednesday 11:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Thursday 8:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Friday 8:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Saturday 8:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Sunday 8:00 AM – 2:00 AM
Ambassador Face-off?!
There’s a very interesting story about how I ended up at Nick’s Bar and Grill in Cedar Rapids.
Sometime yesterday, I was scrolling through Facebook, when I saw that a local bar owner had taken on the title “Ambassador of Bar Food”.
The bar owner was none other than Jaymz Larson (Jimmy Z) himself, and he was doing a promotion for a lunch special at his bar, The Double Z. I thought it would be a nice gesture to go give him my blessing and ask if he wanted to do a video together.
Jaymz wanted to get some wings, so we all went to Nick’s bar and grill, which according to Jaymz has the best wings in town.
Being seen in a video with the new Ambassador of Bar food has the added benefit of clarifying to the general public that we are completely separate people. Such clarification is necessary because unlike the Ambassador of Bar Food, the original Ambassador of flavors would never endorse the usage of cottage cheese for human consumption.
As Jaymz pointed out in the video, wings aren’t nearly as popular where I’m from as they are here in Cedar Rapids. Mississippi has some of the best fried chicken in the country, so we tend to eat a lot of that. Chicken strips from gas stations are also extremely popular, and wings are generally considered bar food.
Since I’m not any kind of expert on wings, I wanted to sample something else at Nick’s to get a feel for the quality of their cooking. The bartender pointed me to an item called Nick’s Cheesy Beef.
Nick’s Cheesy Beef
This sandwich has shredded beef, cheese sauce, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, green peppers and roasted red pepper. I think they hit a home run with this sandwich quite honestly. It’s very similar to a Philly steak style sandwich, but with a few modifications that make it a pretty solid choice for bar food. The beef itself was very tender and perfectly cooked.
It had lots of flavor and exceeded my expectations of a typical sandwich from a neighborhood bar. The addition of cheddar cheese sauce appealed to my innate love for the holy trinity of southern cheese (Velveeta, cheese whiz, and spray cheese).
But how were the wings?!
Although the sandwich was my favorite, the wings were no slack either.
Jaymz might have been right when he said they are some of the best in town.
I don’t eat a lot of wings due to personal preference, so I might be a little short on wing-eating experience. There could very well be some great wings in town that I have missed out on, but I still don’t have a problem saying that these must be some of the best.
I do have quite a bit of experience evaluating the quality of good chicken, and I know what it is supposed to smell like and taste like.
Is Nick’s Bar and Grill Motorcycle-Friendly?
Nick’s appears to have a big enough parking lot to accommodate a group of bikers. It’s a typical neighborhood bar with the types of things you would normally find for entertainment in a similar establishment.
The menu seems to have a little bit more variety than most comparable bars in the area, and the quality of the food appears to be on point. If you are hungry while you are in the area, this place would definitely be worth trying out.
A note from Will Carter, The Ambassador of Flavors:
“This is one of many biker bar reviews I do on a weekly basis. The goal is to promote local bars as destinations for motorcycle enthusiasts. These reviews will be part of an online resource created to help bikers find bars with good food and entertainment.”
[Special Thanks to Jaymz for agreeing to shoot a video with me]