Queenie is a bar and restaurant at the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

This is not a review of the food of Queenie, as I would not eat there, but there are some other aspects, I’d like to point out.

The staff is often friendly, but not always efficient or competent. You can sit there for a long time, while they are busy with other things without looking for the customers. Once, in the evening, the place was busy, and it took me half an hour to place my order for a small cup of coffee. It then took me more than forty five minutes sitting there, trying to get hold of waiters who ignored me, some who acknowledged that I wanted to pay, and then disappeared without ever coming back. They probably went on holiday. I finally went up to the teller to pay directly to the cashier. He tried to charge me twice the price on the menu. I protested, and he pointed out that the price had gone up during the time when I had been sitting there trying to pay. Coffee was more expensive after seven o’clock (or six or eight?). I pointed out that this was absurd, as I had been trying to pay for forty five minutes, and he realised the absurdity and charged me the lower price. See, the staff is at least nice, when you manage to catch their attention.

But the strangest thing with this bar is its bad WiFi. It it is without any hesitation the worst WiFi of any bar or restaurant I have seen in Nice, nay, on the Côte d’Azur. You cannot connect straight away, you have to ask for a code, if you manage to get hold of a waiter. The waiter will disappear and (sometimes) come back with a piece of paper where it is written in small light grey letters on a thin piece of paper what the user name and code are. The user name is a mix of letters and numbers, and so is the password. It can be something like xn4r72 / g6ef72, which is very cumbersome to enter on a mobile phone. This combination is valid for a maximum of sixty minutes, after which it will expire. But don’t worry, you won’t ask for a renewal. The speed is so slow that it isn’t worth it. They have had this system for years.

Address: 19 Promenade des Anglais, 06000 Nice, France

Visited occasionally over several years. Last time February 2019.

This is a clean bright place with glass roof and windows from floor to ceiling. The chairs are comfortable.

It is one of those places where you can wait for a long time. There was a tired looking waiter, last time I went. He waived with his hand to assign me a table and then disappeared. His gesture had been vague, and I tried to get hold of him to ask what table(s) he meant, and he sighed and pointed at several in a manner as if it was my fault that I had not paid attention. Five minutes later or so I got the menu. Five minutes later again, a waitress came up to me, and I asked what the dish of the day was. “We’re out of that,” she said and disappeared, before I had time to tell her what my second choice was. Five minutes later, she came back again, and took my order.

The salad was entirely void of dressing, and there was hardly any seasoning. It hadn’t seen dressing even on a postcard. It was like a dry wasteland. There was neither oil or vinegar with the salad, so I had to look around for a waiter. When I at last got hold of one, he at first suggested I use huile piquante, which is an oil to put on pizza. I finally got real olive oil and vinegar. They were both in bottles so tightly sealed that one could not get more than one drip at a shake. This has been the case with Les Jardins du Capitole for years: you rarely get oil and vinegar with your salad unless you firmly ask for it, and it is served in different kinds of bottles that are designed to make it difficult to get anything out of them.

There is an irony in this, as I began going to Le Capitole a long time ago, when their salads were excellent, some of the best salad you could get in this part of Nice. But that was a long time ago. The one I had recently looked like they basically just had taken ingredients from the nearest grocery shop, chopped it up and put it on a plate.

Address: 52 Promenade des Anglais, 06000 Nice, France

Visited occasionally over many years. Last time February 2019.

Very small and very nice little restaurant in Nice. The food is not overly ambitious, but it is very well prepared, and definitely worth the low price.

The couple who have the place are very pleasant people. If you need peace, this may not be the right place, as they are likely to have interesting conversations with other customers, or even you. There is a piano in the corner, which the owner sometimes uses. He plays well, mostly popular music, but it can make it difficult to hear what you say. He seems fully aware of this, and the music usually doesn’t go on for too long.

Address: 10 boulevard Lech Walesa, 06300 Nice, France

Visited in February 2019