Jill C.
Yelp
We arrived at 6:20pm on a Tuesday night, our party of 6, trying to catch a meal before a 8pm show at The Anthem. I repeat: a Tuesday night...in November.
We were there a good 15-20 minutes before a waiter came over to take our order, and we opted to give him our entire order if they were *this* busy.
Right off the bat, we learn that they had run out of the tea-brined chicken entree, wings appetizer, salmon, and the eggplant scallopini. Their menu is one single page, maybe 10 entree options. So for 6:45 on a Tuesday, to run out of that many so early in the night just signals poor planning to me. We had a vegetarian in our group, so excluding a main vegetarian entree is kind of a dealbreaker. There were four of us who had to quickly pivot to another option after hearing about what was missing from the limited menu.
We ordered two drinks from the bar, including a cocktail called Windswept. It took 25 minutes for our two drinks. There are maybe 15-20 tables in the restaurant, and we could see a manager and two servers working. I'm going to take a wild guess that there were only 1-2 people working in the kitchen by the rate of the service. Again, pointing to poor planning and scheduling.
We ordered the white bean dip with pita appetizer, which came out literally 40 minutes after we ordered it. The pita seared your fingers off it was so hot, yet the dip was neither hot nor made from beans as far as we could tell. It literally tasted like a cold Hidden Valley Ranch dressing with a hint of garlic. The temperature, taste, and consistency were barely palatable. We had two pieces of pita and the rest remained on the plate. It went unnoticed just how untouched this selection went on a table of 6 very hungry patrons.
At the 1-hour mark, we inquired with the waiter about an ETA on the rest of our appetizers and entrees because we had a show to catch in 30 minutes. We had a 9yo who just wanted her penne with butter, as she was just starving for anything at 7:30pm. We told him to just bring out items as they were completed, we didn't care what.
About 10 minutes later, the "vegetarian table" of three side dishes arrived along with the fried green tomatoes and the squash ravioli (which was actually cheese ravioli with squash and onions on top, not actual squash in the ravioli like the waiter had advised us). We once again pleaded for the child's penne with butter. Finally it arrived a few more minutes later.
Ten more minutes later, we got two pork belly appetizers, a side of Brussel sprouts (which tasted boiled and mushy, not broiled and crispy), and a shrimp and grits (with small previously frozen peeled shrimp, and a spicy Cajun red sauce we were not expecting). We ordered two roasted beet salads as appetizers, and they came out dead last after every other entree was served. I think the term "roasted" was a mere suggestion, as the entire salad was freezing cold including the beets.
We all quickly scarfed down our food, which everyone commented was mediocre at best. We waited 10 minutes after completing our meal to even find our waiter, and we practically tackled the manager asking for a check. I calculated the 6 individual meal tally's, to the penny, and waited again for the waiter to grab the billfold. Finally I got up and went to the bar, grabbing the manager once again.
Five minutes later, they brought the individual billfolds over and instead of charging one of us $35, she was charged $0.35! She was way too honest and pointed out this error, and they re-ran the card. At this point, had it been my billfold, I would have tipped on the $0.35 and promptly left.
So, all in all, I cannot in good conscience recommend this place for dinner. If you are hungry, or if you only have 90 minutes for a simple meal, Canopy will certainly fall quite short of even mediocre expectations for service or quality. So many other far better options at The Wharf that you'd be best-served by skipping Canopy entirely!