Saoirse M.
Yelp
I visited The Blues Can recently on a Wednesday evening. While the venue itself is just dandy - spartan, but clean and welcoming - it was the food and the service that warranted a two star rating.
Firstly, the service was unreasonably slow. I have sympathy and patience for servers that run their buns off in a venue that is crowded - but this certainly was not the case with our server. She was quite simply inattentive. We had to request menus - for which we waited over 10 minutes, and ended up borrowing from a neighbouring table. Once our drinks were ordered, it was again upwards of 10 minutes (for EVERY round). Once our food was ready, it sat at the kitchen window and cooled while our server passed by at least three times and did not bring it to our table. All in all, terrible service (though, to be fair, our server was very friendly).
Secondly, the food. Our table shared the blackened catfish po'boy, and the rice & beans. The rice & beans was simply delicious and seasoned to perfection, though we had two (yes, no joke, TWO!) crumbles of sausage on the plate. The blackened catfish was downright inedible - way over salted to the point that we couldn't eat it.
As for the The Blues Can as a music venue - its a fun place!! There's a good mix of table sizes, and given in the intimacy of the space, I don't think there's a bad seat in the house. The crowd was varied - every age, shape and size - but all seemed friendly and intent on enjoying a good night of Rockabilly music! As I mentioned earlier, the space is spartan, but definitely does not classify as a "dive". The Blues Can is clean and casual - exactly what I'm after for week night/weekend live music.
THE BOTTOM LINE: All in all, I will be giving The Blues Can additional opportunity to redeem itself. I believe in supporting local businesses, and as another reviewer put it, Calgary needs a good blues venue. I believe The Blues Can is onto something with the creole/southern themed menu, and I would love to see it take off.
Stay tuned ...