Canal Café

The staff and owner are always pleasant. The food is always fresh and you can watch them prepare your food. I’ve been going there for years for breakfast/​lunch since work nearby and the great customer service and food has been consistent.

Popped in for a quick breakfast and got the egg/​bacon sandwich. Fresh, fast, and taste good. Cheaper than the hotel breakfast and just as filling. Bare bones on the décor, but for breakfast to go… who cares. Oh and thought it was pretty cheap… $ 7 bucks for the sandwich and an OJ.

All of my co-​workers love this place, so I recognize that I’m in a minority. Seriously, I’ve heard of people taking new employees here on their first day. Blech. The food is alright. Standard salad bar and hot food bar fare. But it’s in the basement, off a windowless lobby. It has negative atmosphere, like your soul might even be depleted as you sit there. I still eat there occasionally, mostly if I’m walking and talking with someone else who likes that place, and the food is fine. A good selection of drinks and chips. And the staff are friendly. But i don’t really get the appeal of all of those people sitting and staying there.

Oh Canal Café… I give you chance after chance to make me feel better about you and you fail each time! Today I wandered over for lunch with high hopes of getting a yummy steak and cheese with fries. What did I get? I gross steak and cheese that has left me disappointed (and hopefully not ill). The fries are good though… well, they are after I put my own salt on them. I got the daily steak and cheese special — sandwich, fries and small (they refer to it as «medium») drink for over $ 9… Doesn’t seem like much of a deal to me! Next time I want to spend this much on lunch, I think I will head to a nicer sitdown place! On the bright side, the place seems clean and has been very busy the few times I have been there. I don’t believe I will be going back any time soon, however.

Oh, how many thousands of meals have I eaten here? A conservative estimate would be 4,000.
Canal Café is in the building I’ve worked in for the past decade. During that time period the offerings have changed only marginally. When Daniel bought the place (maybe 8 years ago?), he added a real grill — that was a big improvement. Their best stuff comes off the grill.
Breakfast is a great time to eat here. They have a big tray of cut fresh fruit and a vat of cottage cheese on the salad bar. There’s a big box of fresh sweet goodies that are brought in early, with doughnuts, croissants, and pastries. They have bagels from Ottenberg’s bakery, and they are not bad at all. But the best things come from the grill — sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches, bacon, omelets, french toast, pancakes, turkey bacon, scrapple (I’ve never tried scrapple — just can’t do it!).
Lunchtime is, again, all about the grill. Steak and cheese sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, reubens, tuna melts, and on and on. French fries and a grilled chicken sandwich work pretty well. They also do deli sandwiches. There’s a buffet, with green salad fixin’s, cold dishes, and hot — sometimes there’s fried chicken, sometimes turkey with dressing, brussels sprouts, hot apple cobbler, and on and on…
Oh, don’t forget the soups! They make a pretty good turkey soup (on turkey days), and a nice tomato basil soup.
This is no gourmet outing. But it’s consistent — I’ve relied on them to feed me SO MANY TIMES, and they’ve never let me down.

3.0 stars:-)!! The Canal Café serves breakfast and lunch. They are located in the lower lobby of the Foundry office complex.
What I like about the Canal Café is they offer the usual American fare for breakfast. And for lunch, a well stocked salad bar awaits your pleasure or if you choose, a hot food bar is also available. If that does not please you, maybe a made to order sandwich will hit the spot. Most of their sandwiches are grilled. Beware that sometimes the hot food bar can be on the greasy side.
All in all, a great simple and fast place to get fed!