The Canal Restaurant & Bar

I lived in the South for many years and acquired a taste for good Cajun/​Creole cooking, especially anything with crawfish and all things New Orleans. So when I found out about Canal, we had to go.
We went on a hot weekday afternoon, which is the perfect setting for a NOLA kind of evening. The place was dead, but so was every other venue on the street.
SERVICE:
The lady who waited on us was great. She was an attentive server (checking that we knew exactly what we were ordering, since some of the guests don’t like hot stuff) and very personable. She engaged us in a bit of conversation which was really nice, but didn’t dominate our evening. It would be nice to have someone like this every time you eat out.
FOOD:
Apps: Their fried crawfish were good. Not NOLA good, I suspect they were frozen but still, pretty darned good for New England. The sauce they are served with has a nice kick to it. Fried pickles were definitely OK, but I am biased because The Wife makes them also, and hers are better. Half-​shell oysters with the butter sauce, excellent!
ENTREES: On to the entrees. My étouffée was mediocre at best. The crawfish and scallops were way overcooked (rubbery). The crawfish were chewy and the scallops were not worth eating (they actually didn’t taste good). I suspect they were frozen and then cooked in advance. The shrimp were perfect cooked and the sauce and other parts of the dish were great, but very watery. Side dishes were very good.
The Cajun scallops were excellent. The Chicken alfredo was very good. No complaints and the portions are, well, HUGE. The chicken cacciatore was also very good. Same as the above, portions are more than enough.
General comment is that everything is pretty bland. Maybe you need to spice it up to your own tastes but this is not typical NOLA style.
PRICE:
Pretty reasonable considering we were a party of four, ordered two drinks each, three apps, four entrees and three desserts, for under $ 200? No complaints there.
Overall, I’d give them only a ³⁄₅. Not bad for a restaurant in MA trying to serve cajun /​NOLA style food, but they need to kick it up a notch to hit the standard you can find at any crawfish po-​boy place down south.

Amazing food great place just to hang out eat amazing good and listen to live music it also turns into a nite club after ten and I don’t want to forget about bike nite on Wednesdays 2 for 20 on Tuesdays and Thursday’s just a great overall place

Wow… empty bar, empty restaurant. it was Bike Night and Perfect Game was packed and was too busy to replenish the buffet and the wait was too long to order food off the menu so our party of 4 went across the street. Empty! sweet! we order first round of drinks…15 minutes later. ok fine. annoying but whatev. Order food. 3 different apps and a pasta dish off the specials menu. Waitress disappeared to go knows where. Empty drinks for over 10 minutes even after placing our order of simple fried apps that should of been out by now seeing as there was 10 staff members for about 8 customers. finally ONE out of 3 apps arrive. She walked away still not taking a new drink order. We went up to the bar to order drinks. 5 minutes later, next app arrives. Now mind you we are all on bikes so we are ordering apps as meals because we don’t have saddle bags. these aren’t apps we aren’t putting on the table for all to share here. She comes back to check on everything. We are all like ummm wheres the pasta? wheres the poppers?! oh let me check… we wait another 15 minutes. she comes back. ohhh there was a mix up. the special pasta dish wasn’t in the computer to ring in to send to the kitchen!!! sooo in other words, you never could ring it in, you never told the kitchen, you never told us about the mix up. We asked for it to be taken off the bill as well as the poppers that never arrived. As she came back with the bill after another 10 minutes or so, she came back with a tiny plate with what was the pasta we ordered. like seee we made it! here, have a sample!!! LMFAO!!! and guess what kids… that sample was cold and had a 3 inch chunk of plastic in it!!! never ever again will we be back. no wonder the place was empty on Bike Night which packs boths sides of Water St!!! spent over 2 hours in this place for nothing and missed most of bike night

I’ve been here three times now in the past year and a half and every time the food was first rate. Most recently I had the seafood etoufee and my wife had the blacken scallops. Both were phenomenal. The place has a feeling of New Orleans and after being there a while I start thinking about making a trip to New Orleans again.
The only negative I could mention is that the service is inconsistent. For the most part the staff is unorganized and probably no experience working a restaurant. But if you can live with that end result is positive.
Recommended.

We’ve eaten here three or four times and the food has been consistently good, but last night’s meals were really excellent. My husband had the house Jambalaya and I had the Crispy Catfish. Entertainment is always good too. Last night was The Sage Project. Talented. Highly recommend this place for those that love Cajun food!

I have been going to the Canal for over a year and love the place! The food is consistently amazing, they listen to any changes we want made to our order, and services is prompt and friendly. The fish tacos, avacado fries and burger we had this weekend were SO GOOD! Great guitarist played during our meal too. I will continue to make this my go-​to place for great food, atmosphere and service!

So show up get seated waited 20 minutes waitress walks down serves the people who just show up does not even acknowledge our party of four. Went to the bar got our own drinks. Waited another 10 minutes. Finally an actual waiter that works shows up. Offers a drink of soda to make up for it. Nick was his name Good guy started to turn the night around. Got on the orders started. Glad I stayed the honey bbq strips were good. Ordered the Mac and cheese everyone was having a good time. We stayed ordered lots and lots of drinks. So in terms of this place little dirty so it’s a party bar. Food held up well. The bouncers were cool and polite and well spoken. So I say a 4 not for appearance but for the specific staff member stepping in and saving out night.

I liked the look and feel of this place when I walked in, and was looking forward to trying some jambalaya.
Disappointment #1: we had insanely slow service for a night that wasn’t that busy. We were there for almost 3 hours to get appetizers, our meal, and a desert. The waitress seemed a bit out of it, and forgot to bring us our drinks several times. It took us almost a half hour to get our check after we were done eating… we had to almost tackle our server to get her attention so we could get the hell out of there. The manager (or hostess, not sure) blamed it on the ‘Fat Tuesday’ crowd but I didn’t buy it… they weren’t busy when we came in, and even when we went to leave it wasn’t that crazy.
Disappointment #2: the food. Gumbo was cold and not that memorable, the jambalaya was very bland, and our mousse desert was actually more like icing.
Based on this experience, I would recommend not taking a trip down to ‘The Canal.’

This is a nice location. The rooms are below ground level with two main areas, a bar and a dining room. I preferred the food when this was Gumbo and they centered on New Orleans food, but shortly after opening they re-​focused on more traditional pub food. Some of the old fare remains, but it just doesn’t stick out as much in the worcester food scene as it used to. I understand why they did it, I’m just disappointed (and so is crawfish addiction.)
I’m not sure if they still do it, but they had some good ‘happy hour’ dinner deals on entrees and apps before 7 o’clock.

My friends and I went here for drinks last night. The bar had a DJ and the atmosphere was great. I asked for a cranberry vodka at the bar and was disappointed when I figured out I was served cranberry juice. I had a few of my friends taste it to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, but everyone agreed there was no vodka. I brought the drink back to the bar (I’ve never done that before, anywhere, and mixed drinks are not cheap) where the bartender told me there WAS vodka in it and would not offer to add any or make me a new drink.
I’ve worked in food service, I’ve worked in retail, I know that the customer isn’t always right, but three people other than myself said there was only cranberry juice in my cup. I ended up buying myself a different, bottled beverage but I was mostly just disappointed at the way the situation was handled. Not very good customer service. I won’t be getting anything other than bottled beverages if I go back.

So first off, i’ve been a waiter and bartender for 14 years now. After work I picked up friends and met up with other friends, started off at Bocado and then walked around a bit. Our second drink of the night was around 1:35ish (We started late, I work late) at Canal Bar and Grill. Nice atmosphere and everyone seemed happy. At 1:40ish we saw the owner walking around telling people they were closed and then at 1:45 I was a few sips into my drink and I walked a foot over to the popcorn machine. Someone came up behind me and started rubbing by back and grabbed the popcorn bowl out of my hand and said they had to close, I told them we had just paid for drinks and if they had to close early then to refund us our money and we would leave. They said this would be fine and then walked away. I asked the bartender for the manager and he started to swear at me, I asked what his name (so i could call back in the morning and talk to someone in charge). The bartender (Evan) started swearing at me «Get the F*** out of here, we’re closing up, you know how it is buddy». I told him wanted to speak to the manager. I asked the bartender for his name and he wouldn’t tell me and then asked for the managers or owners name and he said don’t worry about it and to «just get the F*** out of here». I took a photo from my cell phone to later identify him to management, he swore more at me for doing so. A few minutes later the manager came over and rubbed my back and shoulder and asked me «Whats the problem hun». I said that we had ordered a drink and we were asked to leave (time was now 1:48). She told me «you know how it is, we have to get everyone out of the building by 2 o’clock». I don’t know if she confused me with a 21yr old drunk kid and thought that by rubbing by arm and back and talking to me like a 10 yr old would make things acceptable. No money back for the drinks we had a few sips of and also no apologies for the threatening manner of the bartender Evan. When I asked the manager her name she didn’t want to tell me, the owner came over (The woman who had grabbed the popcorn from me and rubbed my back). I asked her name and she gave it to me and then the manager gave her name. We explained what happened and they didn’t seem very interested. (1:53pm). We left, never to be back i’m sure. There are so many places in Worcester to get food and beverages, can’t believe an owner and manager would actually treat people like this. I was once 21 and I know the drill of going out and getting wasted and having a bar tell you to leave when its time. My friends and I are in our mid 30’s, this is the first time i’ve gone out for drinks in around 3 weeks, i’m a social drinker at best. Anyways Canal Bar and Grill, until you can properly explain my poor experience I will definitely be telling everyone about my experience this past Saturday night. Not very professional. I miss you when you were 86 Winter, that was a restaurant.

Had a great meal at the Canal last night! Just picked up a new car in Auburn and was looking for something new. Thank you Unilocal!First the Canal is a great space, old brick, exposed beams, great smell, two bars and a cove seating area. My wife and I had grilled cornbread (little chunks of green onion!) appetizer off the menu and a special app, fried oyster beignets with a creole sauce that was awesome. My wife had catfish tacos and I had a fried oyster po’ boy. We switched half way through and were both happy. My only constructive criticism, more oysters on the po’ boy, it was way short, and a better draft selection. Only a few brews to choose from and since this is a NOLA themed place, maybe we should get some of their beer. We couldn’t stay for the entertainment, but they have live music several times each week. This place is sweet, inventive, friendly (our server was very nice, as was the owner who stopped by to chat), and fun. We will be back!

The food here is awesome. The apps are great. I love the back room with all stone and the bar ain’t bad either. Staff is so friendly and it is all handicap accessible. The etouffe and shrimp n grits was bomb. One of my go-​to spots in the Woo.

This place has gone downhill badly since the ownership change. The New Orleans inspired drink menu is gone, replaced with an overpriced list of not-​very-​unusual whiskys. The ‘dark and stormy’ I had definitely did not contain ginger beer; it tasted like mostly rum and a little coke.
The menu has been changed (and the website not updated with the new one). The changes are not positive. Example: seafood cassoulet went from containing shrimp, mussles, scallops, and crawfish to containing haddock and lobster. Other similarly bizarre edits away from creole/​cajun towards generic american, e.g. mac and cheese. Maybe they are trying to devolve into a pub? Concept of restaurant now unclear, unifying theme is cluelessness.
Service not particularly attentive, and the owner was there. Consensus in our group was that this place will not last long. Sad to see this formerly great restaurant fall apart so quickly. Gets an extra star for having added outside seating though.

This past Tuesday (day after Memorial holiday), husband and I went with another couple at their suggestion to try this place where none of us had been before. We arrived shortly after 5pm and were the only people in the dining room. Turns out this was a plus because it was like dining at home only someone else did all the prep, serving, cleaning. Normally so few people would send up red flags but it was the day after a holiday and a Tuesday, and early, but the experience turned out to be a very enjoyable one. The menu was interesting, food was delicious – prepared properly and just the right portion sizes. Wait staff was attentive. I love Cajun food so it was hard to narrow down my choice, cut the selection of shrimp and grits was definitely the right one – yum. Everyone else had beers but I went with a cocktail, which was very tasty, but since it should have contained two shots of alcohol and I didn’t feel it, I’ll probably go with beer next time. I will definitely be returning to this establishment in the near future.

The food is delicious every time. The menu has something for everyone and I love that they kept some of the Gumbo Cajun favorites mixed in on the menu. If you love seafood I recommend the blackened catfish or sea scallops with the pineapple ketchup.

We dined here because they honored a Groupon of their predecessor’s, a complete shot in the dark. I figured it would be an interesting «joint». Totally wrong. It turns out to be a nicely decorated, well staffed classy seafood pub and restaurant. The seafood was really well prepared with interesting and unusual sauces and all this at fair prices. They had one bargain draft for only $ 2 which was about as good as a premium beer. Our server, Erica was friendly, prompt and attractive, a really great waitress. This was a really pleasant surprise and I highly recommend the place.