Blue Canoe — Restaurant in Tupelo

4 stars because of lack of efficiency. My boyfriend and I travel quite a bit and we were in Tupelo for the week. We stopped in here on Tuesday night and had a great time. The food was amazing. We had avocado wedges and a brisket, mac-n-cheese, burrito....top notch, for real. Definitely give the food a try. There is also an excellent beer selection. And a shout out to Vinny! However, we had such a great time on Tuesday and since we were still in town of Friday, we decided to come back. We went in about 7 pm, which I do understand is a very busy time in the restaurant world. With that said, how do I know how busy Friday at 7 pm is, and The Blue Canoe doesn't? We walked in to a packed house, no host, no greeting....so we headed towards the bar. A server stopped to tell us that the one large, empty, dirty, table was about to be cleaned for some other folks who were waiting, also that there "might" be an open table outside. Ok, great. Well, there's just 2 of us, we can wait, no problem. So, we sit in the little waiting area in the back, near the bar. The same server comes by to tell us that a table should be open soon. Cool. Again, we understand waiting, especially when it's a full house. While we're sitting there, 2 more people walk in. They talk to a different server, who tells them she'll get them seated. She then walks to a 2-top, clears off the dirty dishes and walks to the back, obviously, to take the dirty dishes. These 2 ladies go and sit at the still dirty table. Don't get me wrong, we could have gotten up and gone and sat at that dirty table before them. But, we should not have to rush to sit at a dirty table, just to save a our seats. A host/hostess could solve that problem for you. Possibly, you do have a host, but that person was busy helping someone else? In this situation, you could hire a second host. Make sure there is always someone present at your front door to greet new people and keep a flow going in your restaurant. If you feel that you are just a bar/music venue...I would imagine that your food sales are near your alcohol sales, if not more on some days. If that's the case, you need some new systems in place for the functionality of your front of house. The food that we had was amazing and we came back for more! That is definitely what you should strive for. What's the point of having your badass menu if you don't care about how well it's getting out there! Systems are necessary in the back of house, why would you not need them out front too? In the small time we were there, I noticed a lack of communication between your servers. Based off that observation and the fact we just lost the only open 2-top, I suggested we leave. We were both hungry, but I am now guessing how efficient the back of house is and how long we'd be waiting for food, if the server got the order right to begin with? I'm not trying to hate on your staff at all, but I'm in the industry and I know how these things can tend to be hand in hand. We're both really sorry we didn't get to try some more of that menu! We'd still absolutely stop in here for food. Maybe just dodge busy nights. Or just come back for the beer selection...

Went the other night and was terribly disappointed with the service that I received. I usually don’t post about negative experiences at restaurants or anywhere really but something about how I was treated just doesn’t sit right with me.

Tammy waited on a few friends and me and was extremely rude and standoffish from the get go. Even right after we sat down, we overheard her and another customer - that was seated right next to us - speaking badly about our table. I had asked for a menu and she gave me some smirky response that really just turned me off from getting anything else. I did not want to order food after that if that’s how my service was going to be all night. When she brought out drinks, she proceeded to stand directly over me with her entire body touching my back to hand my table drinks, directly over me. She then put my drink 2 inches in front of my face for me to grab…it was actually pretty menacing the way she did it I’m not sure of any other way to describe that part. This wasn’t a thing where it’s bad manners, I feel like she was intentionally trying to be rude and she continued to belittle us for quite a long time.

Eventually, she caught the hint that we were not comfortable being treated that way and started to backtrack and act nice, but that does not make up in the slightest the way she treated us.

I am always very patient and understanding with everyone in the restaurant industry but this was just no way to treat anyone as a human being. I frequent Blue Canoe often and have never seen or would ever expect the type of experience I had the other night.

All I can say is I hope Miss Tammy can learn that she cannot treat people the way she did because that’s no way of going about life, especially if they are paying...

I guess in order to really understand the human condition one has to see the ugly side of things. Tonight my friends and I were at dinner and basically forced out of the restaurant by the owner. As we conversed he came over to our table (not our waitress) and snatched the money off the table (tip and all) in a rude manner. We disregarded it to his ignorance. He came back and said "I need you to get up because I'm trying to run a business here." I had to take a few minutes to process this. I requested for him to come back over. We explained that his approach was rude and disrespectful. He said "take it how you want to". DISCRIMINATION and RACISM is alive and well. I've never been a person to pull the race card but this was blatant as there were several tables of people there who could have been asked to move/leave as well. We were the only black people there.There were even tables of people who were seated before we got there. When I asked why we couldn't stay and listen to the bad he said you can if you want to pay $15. He automatically assumed we weren't going to stay for the show or we couldn't afford it. I've spent my hard earned money there on several occasions. Needless to say I'll never go back and my poor little naive eyes have been opened to what I already...