Shade On the Canal

Super delicious food. The serving staff was friendly and attentive. Pork nachos were huge. I’m in love with their café chicken salad, the dressing is perfect.

This place was pretty darn tasty. I had the mac and cheese app and burned my mouth trying to eat it too quickly. I just couldn’t stop because it was so yummy! It had a nice crunchy top and a creamy, homemade sauce.
The fish tacos were well-​seasoned, with plenty of crunchy cabbage to balance out the spicy mayo sauce. For a bar-​style restaurant, they definitely had a lot of options for people wanting fresh, healthy food. The beer selection was decent, but I’ve seen more impressive ones. All in all, I’d definitely go back to meet friends or for a casual date.

Wings and sandwich pub. Really friendly service. Save room for the Skillet cookie dessert! Oreo was our favorite!

Great place. Casual atmosphere. The BBQ pizza is amazing.

A great place to meet up with friends and enjoy a good meal. The chili dogs, baked beans, Caesar salad, and the pizzas are my favorite items to enjoy. They are often packed with customers so the service and wait times can be a bit longer than other places. Since I go there with friends, it just gives us more time to catch up. So it works out.

Visited this establishment for the first time. Didn’t like the food one bit. I ordered a ½ grilled chicken salad and a 5 piece parmesan garlic wings. First of all, the grilled chicken was hard as a rock, no taste at all. My thoughts were… how can a salad of all things taste so bad? Even the blue cheese dressing had no taste. I couldn’t understand that for the life of me. The wings… tasteless, no seasoning, no nothing. I looked around and saw the customers eating enjoying their food and I said to myself, these people love this food? Why? This was the first and last time I will visit Shades. Definitely not my cup of tea.

This awesome little place is nestled on a cute street filled with shops and places to stop in. The downtown area is absolutely adorable, and for someone like me who was just visiting, was the perfect place to visit after doing some trail running nearby.
Our group of 3 got seated quickly and ordered a round of beer. Their selection was good & they had a full bar as well. The interior matched the feel of the downtown area and was definitely a local favorite going by how many people were in there for lunch. All of us ordered a chicken salad and it was large and fresh but I wish it would have had more veggies on it. Like I said, it was a large salad but the toppings were sparse. The chicken was great however!
Overall it was a nice lunch meal in a quaint area. We left happy and not hungry to continue on exploring the area.

Having lunch with my friend who is gluten intolerant so when we decided to share a glutin free pizza. I was not expecting anything great. I was wrong we had the Greek pizza and it was amazing! I had to ask the waitress if she maid a mistake before letting michelle continue to eat. They have a full gluten free menu.

This place is always busy. Right in the heart of historic Canal Winchester. The building was built right in the old canal.
Awesome menu choices. So many good dishes from which to choose.
I’ve read some Unilocalers saying this is a Roosters knock-​off. The owner was a Roosters employee, went out on his own, was not allowed to serve bone-​in wings for 5 years due to a non-​compete agreement. Now the menu is MUCH larger and better than Roosters.

I’ve been to Shade on the Canal many times since we moved about thirty minutes to its neck of the woods, mainly because there aren’t a ton of local dine-​in restaurants around us. I’ve always found the food to be OK if not a little bland, but after a very frustrating experience with management yesterday, I won’t be back.
My husband and I called in a pickup order yesterday on our way home. When we arrived, the host had trouble with our payment method (prepaid Visa card with plenty of availability on it). She struggled for a few minutes and called over who I’m assuming was an Assistant Manager or the Manager on Duty. She also struggled and said, «I’ve never gotten these prepaid cards to work with our system.» I explained that they’re Visa-​branded and the point is they work anywhere Visa is accepted. We didn’t have an alternate paymwnt method on us.
After a half-​hour wait, the AM/​MOD came out and said that while her manager confirmed they take prepaid cards, they wouldn’t take ours and were out of luck unless we wanted to go all the way home and come back with another card (hour round trip, mind you, while our food had already been getting cold on the host stand for the better part of 20 minutes).
Management had an opportunity to make it right but didn’t. They wasted our time. We stopped at a pizza place five minutes away and used the card without issue.
TL;DR: Shade on the Canal needs to upgrade its POS system and learn how to treat customers. Two stars.

I have had mixed visits here but for the most part it’s good food that’s affordable with friendly staff… always packed so it wouldn’t hurt to call ahead

Great food service is the best clean fast friendly staff and did I say the food is awesome. Worth the short drive.

I love Shades because they know exactly who they are and operate as such. What you see is what you get and it’s awesome. Definitely family friendly and there is a separate bar area for adults wanting to have a bar experience.
No wonder this is THE gathering place for the residents of CW. Service is always very friendly and attentive, the bar staff remembers your name if you’re a semi-​regular, and the food and drinks are always consistent. One time our food came out a little bit slow (I honestly didn’t notice as I was enjoying a HUGE Miller Lite which is what you order there because it’s Shades! I actually believe they have a larger beer on tap selection now) and (I’m guessing) the owner came out personally to apologize, deliver our food and gave us a gift certificate to come back. I’m telling you, I didn’t notice that the food was slow, as this restaurant has the best service in downtown Canal Winchester.
Shades has bar food and drinks for casual gatherings and Shades knows that and owns it. Yum.

I ate at the Athens location last week and hit up Canal today. Clean restaurant, solid service and the boneless wings were a total standout. Not greasy or small. Good pieces of chicken cooked in clean oil. I’ll be back.

Big, roomy joint in downtown Canal. Family owned. Locals mostly working here. Bar area. Plenty of TVs. Definite atmosphere/​feeling of «neighborhood establishment». There’s plenty of sports teams’ pictures and photos of the yesteryears lining the walls.
Chose the chicken salad sandwich with fries on the side. I must say, quite good indeed! I like to be able to taste the different components of chicken salad. This sandwich did NOT disappoint. Just the right amount (light) of mayo/​dressing. Clearly defined shredded chicken — great filling flavor. Big grape chunks. Thin rye swirl bread, lightly toasted. The sandwich was filling — two giant scoops of the chicken salad! The fries weren’t bad; perhaps a tad softer. Natural potato flavor, better than tasting frying oil.
The last few times I’ve had Shaw’s, it’s been take-​out. Their Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad is also a healthy alternative I’ve had from here.

I have a good friend who lives in Canal Winchester, so I drive out here every now and then to dine with my friend at Shade. The interior is clean & comfortable, the service is friendly and timely, and the prices are reasonable. The waitresses do seem rather young as some of the other reviews state. Their food is good… but not great. For example, I had their ½ pound bayou burger on my most recent visit. It tasted good, but it was much smaller than you would expect. Since quoted burger weights are based on pre-​cooking weight, I’m guessing they use a fairly fatty ground beef patty that shrinks significantly with cooking. They do have 10 or so beers on draft, but they tend to be your high volume, mainstream, popular varieties of beer. If you always like to drink the «usual» when you’re out at the pub, you’ll be happy. If you’re looking to try a new beer, Shade might not be for you.
I think this restaurant is a solid 3-​stars, but I might just not be the restaurant’s intended clientele. I personally prefer the Winking Lizard for their much larger beer menu.

I eat there once a month when we have union meetings. I really like a place that makes me feel good and this place does. Their salads are excellent, along with the boneless wings i get. Service is always good, we never have an empty glass.

Just passing through Canal Winchester and was looking for something local for lunch. Shades turned out to be a great choice. Started with some wings and then one of their specialty pizzas. The Abominable Snowman pizza was very good. Nice combination of meats with the bbq sauce.

Great wings and nachos. This place has a great vibe and the food quality is consistent. My new favorite place to eat in Canal

On my tour of Ohio sports bars this place absolutely stood out. A hostess quickly sat our party and almost seamlessly a server greeted us and have us the specials. The place had a fantastic line up on draft including some great craft selections and the bartender was knowledgeable and was able to prepare our shots perfectly.
Food was very good bar fare including some of the hottest wings I had while in Ohio (fatalis). Service was excellent, had several people check on us in addition to our server and the atmosphere was very laid back and guest-​centric. The only real knock on the joint was that there weren’t very many TV’s set up in the dining room but the bar area had plenty of TVs set up so any sports fan could catch a variety of stuff all at once.
Will definitely return anytime we are near this place.