Knotty Barrel

NY Bar, at its finest! I had the Greek Salad w/​chicken… amazing!
It’s like a bar/​grill set up. Good times. Def going back…

Great neighborhood spot. Super friendly and attentive staff, tasty selection of beer, and burgers to die for. Get the milk stout and the knotty Wellington with the sweet potato waffle fries. Yum!

In the San Diego area and looking for a great place to eat? Try this place! Their menu was on point! The food was delicious. We came here with about a group of eleven and we were all in unanimous decision that this place was amazing. The chicken pot pie, the buffalo chicken burger, and the dessert to name a few were good! Mimosas and beer available. Plenty of space to sit and eat. Parking is sketchy in the area. Cant wait to come back and try something else on the menu! Did someone say smoked ribs on a Sunday at 4pm. Wow.

Arrived late night for a business trip. About 5 mins on Unilocal and found this place.
Great Spot. Great Beer Selection. Steak Sandwich was yummy. Fried pickle chips were the best I’d ever had.
IF I’m ever back in San Diego — I will definitely make a visit.

This was the first place that felt like home after our move from Brooklyn to San Diego!
The staff at Knotty are ever pleasant and always ready to help and make sure you’re having a great time!
They have a great rotation of draught beers and ciders. If you’re unsure of what you’d like, the bartenders are happy to give you a taste of the particular beer your considering. Or if you have a flavor in mind, they will find a beer to accommodate you.

I highly recommend getting their fries trio platter. It comes with sweet potato waffle fries, tater tots and regular fries. Paired with the fries are various dipping sauces including a spicy mayo type of sauce. SO GOOD. I was honestly so impressed by the fries I couldn’t help gobbling them up. I was full by the time my dinner came but it was worth it. These fries are on happy hour so I highly suggest ordering a plate for the table.
For my entrée, I ordered a delicious chicken sandwich. It had a lemony, capery flavor. The chicken was cooked to perfection. I was really impressed with the food at this restaurant.
We came at around 7 on a Friday night, which was a great time to eat dinner and relax with friends. Other tables were full but the vibe was still calm. I’d definitely like to revisit this place.

Monday’s $ 10 burger + beer deal is A-​OK.
good sized burger, good flavor, nice bun.
Note: price does not include cheese

Knotty Barrel is a great spot to grab a beer and a burger either before or after a padres game. On Mondays you can get a beer and burger for $ 10. You can also sit outside on the patio and bring your dog. I wouldn’t necessarily come here to watch football as it is small and there aren’t a lot of TVs. This is a NY Giants bar FYI. The food here is typical bar food but it’s pretty good and ranges from $ 10-​$ 15 for most entrees.
The ambiance is super casual and friendly. My recommendations for food would include either the burger, beef Wellington or the pulled pork sandwich. Their Rosemary tator tots are amazing! I’m not a big fan of their house made potato chips though (they are a little plain). The fried pickles are a great appetizer and actually pretty filling.
All of the bartenders are friendly and I’ve never had to wait more than 5 minutes to get a drink unless it’s after a Padres game (this bar is super close to petco park).

I have really enjoyed this place. We have walked here several times now for happy hour, games on Sunday and dinner throughout the week. Always have had great service and the patrons have been friendly. Definitely a good spot for Sunday football. We were able to share a table with others when it got busy and it was a fun vibe and cool people. They also have seating outside and it’s a fun spot to people watch at night.
Have had a few different things on the menu and they have all been great. The buffalo chicken sandwich is wonderful, their house made potato chips are also yummy. I think the favorite so far is the pulled pork wontons. They are delicious. My GF has also had the pot pie and that was also apparently great.
Definitely will be a go-​to.

No AC. A guy’s guy hangout. The tables and chairs are not comfortable and the food is not great at all. There are a lot of beer choices. If that’s your thing then you would be in heaven. I like beer, but I didn’t know about nitro in your beer and the size of bubbles mattering, etc. It is a thing. Really. If beer is your thing, like you follow beer people on blogs and pod casts, then you should go here for sure. If you’re looking for something to eat, go somewhere else.

This is the go to place for New York Giants fans. Great vibe and great menu. The Parmesan truffle fries are delicious. Beer sampler was great, as well. I suggest the Blood Orange Wit. Outlets at the top seater near the bathrooms. Kids welcome. 8 tvs all showing football. NY Giants game has sound and Eli Manning jerseys abound. My kind of place!

I enjoyed the food, the atmosphere, and the service. After I got food I saw some really great looking food brought to the next table.
While in the San Diego Gaslamp district, I was craving craft brew but did not want to spend a fortune. Low and behold, here’s a place that has a Wednesday night special of three dollar pints!
Since it was happy hour, I filled up on half price appetizers. Everything tasted good enough to come back!

Located in east village, Knotty Barrel is known for their vast variety of brews. The first time I went there was for a bathroom stop. The ladies I accompanied ordered a round of shooters. OK, first mistake. Who orders shooters at a gastropub? ugh.
Luckily I had a chance to return for their brews. Their draft selection along with their seasonal specialties is superb. For lunch my husband ordered the steak sandwich while I ordered the bison burger. The waitress was very kind and very helpful when choosing our dishes. Service was a tiny bit slow for a weekend afternoon filled to about 30% capacity, but that didn’t bother us too much as we watched American ninja warrior on the overhead TV.
I loved my burger! It was not very large (I’m talking to you, you hefty eaters.) If you’re hungry, I suggest the steak sandwich which was almost twice the size. I thought the cheese choice was on point.
Price was very reasonable. Our beers were less than $ 5/​pour. I will most definitely be returning.

This place has like no customer service value. Cool place, good Moscow mules and a lot of beers of tap to try.
Waitress gives my friend his bill before he’s even served his beers (we’re seated and ordered formally). Waited 10 minutes from getting the check… Ended up going to another waitress at the bar to ask about the drinks. The waitress earlier reprimanded us for trying to order at the bar, because we saw that she was busy and we only wanted drinks. Definitely showed us that she only wanted the tips. We ended up ordering at the bar because she didn’t come back for 15 minutes.
Anyways, service didn’t get better. It’s ok, other places in gaslamp to go to!

I live a block away, and between Bootlegger, Neighborhood and Knotty Barrel, this place has become my default local bar. Beer selection is the primary reason for the 5 stars — they offer everything I could want that I usually have to go to BevMo to find! Their draft list, which is discounted during happy hour and certain nights, has about 16 beers and is not entirely IPAs like many San Diego bars. Even better, they offer flights of anything on the draft list.
The bar has a TouchTunes machine which is always fun when game sound isn’t on. There are even TVs on the patio!
Only aspect that I would rate less than 5 stars is the food. The grilled cheese was amazing, but the tacos on Tuesday are tiny and the nachos weren’t as tasty as I’d hoped. I’ll keep coming back for the beer, but maybe not for the food.

Knotty barrel is a solid craft beer spot. There are many «craft beer» bars in San Diego so the goal is really just not to be bad, as opposed to standing out. Knotty Barrel manages to get the job done.
They have the traditional blackboard with chalk approach that you traditionally find at these craft restaurants. All of the beers I have tried here have been enjoyable. For those that like «bang for your buck» drinks, they usually have one or two Indian pale ales on tap that range from 11%-13%.
The restaurant is spacious and has some outdoor seating as well. The bathrooms can have lines during busy hours, but which ones don’t really. I’ve only tried a few items but their Parmesan fries were pretty good (haha I think that’s what I got… Drinking makes the memory hazy).
Overall, I’d certainly come back to enjoy a beer or two.

I visited Knotty Barrel for trivia night on a Thursday. I got there early enough for happy hour so ordered the chicken avocado tostadas which were, quite frankly, a disappointment. The chicken was very dry and there wasn’t enough other flavor to the dish. Next, I ordered the ahi poke with wonton chips off the regular menu, which the server recommended. It was similarly a disappointment. Way too much soy sauce that completely overpowered the ahi.
I tried a couple of other dishes ordered by my companions as well. I recommend the three way fries — which consisted of shoestring fries with Parmesan, tater tots and sweet potato waffle fries. The fried pickles were too salty. The hummus and pita was nothing special and I prefer my hummus a little smoother. So overall, out of five dishes, only one was good.
The wine bottles were half off and I can recommend the wine. I ordered the Mark West Pinot Noir which was only $ 16 and quite good for the price. I had some of a Malbec which was also nice.
Trivia night was also quite fun! I guess there’s a $ 10 minimum for trivia night but no charge to play so a fun way to spend the night.
Overall, probably a 3.5 star rating. I rounded up in generosity. I’d return but stick to the fries and half off wine on trivia night!

Knotty or nice is what they have on their shirts. Nice play on words.
My first time coming here and it was for trivia night. Trivia night gets a bit crazy and fun though. I don’t know what you win but we were really drunk trying to answer some hard questions! Some of them were tricky too.
We ended up ordering a bunch of items, sliders, fried pickle, chicken wings, and other things I don’t remember too well. But I do remember that it was okay bar food. Nothing out of the ordinary or tasty. It’ll hold you over if you are drinking. I love the fact that they had some tasters you can do for a good price!
The trivia staff guy was cool and funny and so were the bust boys. Our server in the other hand was okay. You can tell he was overloaded with tables because he messed up on several of our orders but fixed it promptly when we told him about it. I would come back for some trivia night again! It was fun.

We stopped into Knotty Barrel for a few hours to watch the Duke game, have a couple drinks and appetizers before the wedding reception. It was walking distance from our hotel and it was not too crowded for my fiancée and her knee scooter.
We ordered a round of shots, I got 2 Moscow mules and we ordered the:
POTATO CHIP NACHOS — house cut potato chips, bleu cheese, English cheddar, jalapeños, horseradish cream, and buffalo chicken for an extra $ 3.
I love this place and the nachos were on point!!! Those might have been the best nachos I’ve ever had. The flavor mixed with being spicy and cheesy was just pure heaven. I’m actually craving some right now.
The drinks were nice and strong and my vodka shot was extremely smooth. They said their tequila shots were smooth too. They had flat screen TV’s everywhere and the vibe was cool.
I really enjoyed this place and could see myself returning quite often.
OOOOO
5 out of 5 Afros

Didn’t try any of the beers, but the food was top notch. Shared a huge order of fried pickles, which were light and crispy and came with a ranch dipping sauce. Like most fried foods, they are much better if eaten hot.
Bison burger was nice and juicy (I ordered it medium). The blue cheese and caramelized onions added some nice flavor. Fries, were the thin, shoestring type and were pretty good. My date enjoyed her tacos as well.
I’ll have to come back and try some of their beers and other interesting food options.