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Resident 2B · 12-11-2005, 10:18 PM

From my family's experience, Canoe has great food. However, when they are busy, as they are on all summer weekends, they place families with children, in our case ages 10, 16 and 18, in the bar and not in the main dining room.

I believe they have every right to do this and that I have every right to express my dissatisfaction with this treatment.

A bar environmet is not an appropriate environment for teenage and pre-teen children and Canoe does not give you any choice to sit in their dining rooms instead of their bar when you check in. You have to wait to see what you are going to get. Since the best dining room is off limits to children, chances are better that you will end up in the bar with children, than if you were there without children. If you get the bar and do not want to sit there, you go back to the bottom of the waiting list with no guarentee of getting a seat in one of the dining rooms when you get to the top again. We call it the Canoe lottery.

I realize there are some people that think this is an appropriate policy. I have no problem with this. However, I feel that other families with children should be made aware of this policy. By the way, from personal experience, this policy seems to be enforced more when they are busy than when they are not busy. It is also clear that Canoe has a good enough business to have a policy like this without worrying about the small amount of business they lose due to this policy.

It would be great if they would tell us when the children's exclusion from the dinig room is in effect and at what age the children are allowed to dine in the main dining room.

We love the place, it's food servers and the dining room environment. However, we find it hard to enjoy a family dinner in the bar with four or five people at a table no larger that 28" in diameter with loud and often "adult" conversations going on four feet from our kids. To boot, we are paying the same for the dinners at the bar as if we were in the dining room, and when you are paying Canoe prices for four or five plates, you expect better treatment.

12-11-2005, 10:18 PM	#13
Resident 2B Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: North Shore, MA Posts: 1,357 Thanks: 994 Thanked 313 Times in 163 Posts	Not to beat a dead horse, but.... From my family's experience, Canoe has great food. However, when they are busy, as they are on all summer weekends, they place families with children, in our case ages 10, 16 and 18, in the bar and not in the main dining room. I believe they have every right to do this and that I have every right to express my dissatisfaction with this treatment. A bar environmet is not an appropriate environment for teenage and pre-teen children and Canoe does not give you any choice to sit in their dining rooms instead of their bar when you check in. You have to wait to see what you are going to get. Since the best dining room is off limits to children, chances are better that you will end up in the bar with children, than if you were there without children. If you get the bar and do not want to sit there, you go back to the bottom of the waiting list with no guarentee of getting a seat in one of the dining rooms when you get to the top again. We call it the Canoe lottery. I realize there are some people that think this is an appropriate policy. I have no problem with this. However, I feel that other families with children should be made aware of this policy. By the way, from personal experience, this policy seems to be enforced more when they are busy than when they are not busy. It is also clear that Canoe has a good enough business to have a policy like this without worrying about the small amount of business they lose due to this policy. It would be great if they would tell us when the children's exclusion from the dinig room is in effect and at what age the children are allowed to dine in the main dining room. We love the place, it's food servers and the dining room environment. However, we find it hard to enjoy a family dinner in the bar with four or five people at a table no larger that 28" in diameter with loud and often "adult" conversations going on four feet from our kids. To boot, we are paying the same for the dinners at the bar as if we were in the dining room, and when you are paying Canoe prices for four or five plates, you expect better treatment.