Canal Street Café — Restaurant in Milwaukee

The cafe is like an upscaled diner including standard fare with specialty dishes. We had a surprise today as we did not know there is a weekend buffet. Normally I am not a buffet person, but when the prime rib entree is $35 and prime rib is on the $25, all-you-can-eat buffet, you do the buffet.

The buffet itself doesn't look like much. In fact we didn't even notice it until our server recommended it. But when you hear about and then see what all they have, it's wonderful. Then you get to taste it all and it's amazing.

I way overdid it because it I couldn't decide between breakfast or lunch. I am now on the couch waiting for the food coma to win. They have prime rib, roast turkey, baked ham, shrimp cocktail, an omlet station, several kinds of juice, pancakes, waffles, sausage, bacon, corned beef hash, eggs, pastries, housemade desserts, fresh fruit. Oh my! It all looked so delicious. They do have a chaffing dish with pancakes and waffles, but will make them fresh if requested.

They do not take reservations, but have a list and you get a blinking and vibrating thing when your table is ready. We only waited 20 minutes at 11am on a Saturday. Not bad at all.

The reason for the 4 stars is the server seemed confused most times he came to the table and took halfway through our meal to bring the one bloody mary that was ordered. I don't know if he was overwhelmed, but he should be writing things down if it's a memory issue. He was polite and attentive, but something was definitely off.

Overall we enjoyed the...

The Canal Street Cafe, we went for breakfast and there was a wait which was no problem but we had saw customer cashing out at the bar so we asked the host if we could dine at the bar, she said “yea it’s first come first serve once it’s cleaned off” we said no problem, trust me we completely understand, so we stood by the empty seats watching the bartender walk back and forth not even acknowledging us, so for about 20 minutes we kept glancing at the host and the bartender seeing if anyone would help us clean this spot, finally the host walked over and said “I assume you want me to clean this” which I even helped her stack the dishes and move them over then she said “do you want me to wipe it too?” I told her or she can just give me the tag and I’ll wipe it, which she did and I wiped the spot clean. Now it took another 5 minutes for the bartender to come over and take our drink order, i ordered off the mimosa list and asked her if she could please back me up another mimosa on the list as soon as she seen me finished. Which she did, we ordered breakfast, just eggs hash browns and bacon and that took another 25 minutes. You would think it would be more convenient to have a restaurant in your hotel and that was not the case, we were better off loosing our parking spot going to another restaurant and honestly we should of just stayed at another hotel for the horrible experience of $669 for two nights. Will not be returning...

Was seated in a section where I was the only new table.. Everyone else had their bills and to go boxes. I was sitting for over fifteen minutes.. No acknowledgement, no water, nothing. Finally the waitress came by.. ordered a Monte Cristo with browns, a Ruben with fries, and a coffee. Waitress took my order finally, got a cup of coffee reasonably fast. My food came out. Monte Cristo was as soggy mess. The Ruben was almost as good as any grab and go from a supermarket. Fries were terrible. Never saw my waitress, or a refill on coffee ever again.. Until I was just about to leave. Then she literally ran out from nowhere to grab what she thought was a tip. For terrible 'service', she got a whole fifty cents. Absolutely no interaction outside of that . Not even a check to see if anything was okay, or I needed a refill..so about as much as her skills were worth. Normally even if the food was terrible, I'd leave ten at least.. five at least for bad service. But this was the most wretched experience I've ever had. I can see why only grubby old octogenarians eat here. They probably think Denny's is haute cuisine. From a casino hotel, you think they'd raise the bar a little ... But no. Trust me.. There's a million places to eat in Milwaukee.. just stay away from this...