Shannon Pub

There are few times that I can say everything was just amazing, but I really can say that about Shannon’s Pub. Everything we had was fresh made and home made, not junk you get frozen. I got the shepherds pie and it was delicious, the gravy had a nice tang with a beer flavor. My girlfriend got the fried fish sandwich and said it was amazing, juicy, cooked well, and you could actually taste the beer in the batter which had a great flavor. The beer selection is really good with some of your English and Irish favorites on tap. We both got Boddingtons which was great.
The only thing that was slightly lacking was our service, the waitress kind of ignored us and your pints are on the higher side in price at 5.50 a pint, but that wasn’t a huge deal. Overall I highly recommend this spot, you’re going to get a delicious meal and a nice atmosphere.

The fish and burgers here are fantastic. This is definitely a place I checkout during fish fry season. The atmosphere is casual and the wait staff is friendly. The only reason I didn’t give them five stars is because they are pretty slow. I’ve gone here when it’s crowded, and I’ve been here when I was the only table — they’re still slow.
So if you want something fast, probably not going to happen lol However, the food is definitely worth the wait.

I used to go here with my husband when I was vegetarian and couldn’t really enjoy it. Now that I’m off that, I can eat anything, but it’s still super meat heavy. Since I wasn’t feeling that, I ordered the fish sandwich, broiled. Holy moly, was that the correct choice! It was quite possibly the best fish sandwich I’ve ever tasted. The salt potatoes that came with it were good too. I also ordered the potato soup as an appetizer and I can see what all the fuss is about.
I might not be into all the heavy meat dishes, but that fish sandwich is money. If I find myself back here, I know what I’m getting. Also, that potato soup is no joke. Order it.

On a business trip and wanted something besides the normal meal so we decided to try the place out. The Shepard’s pie was perfect and the service was great.

It’s St Patrick’s Day so I did extensive research on finding a good place for corned beef and cabbage. Sadly this will be my first and last time at Shannon Pub. I was extremely dissapointed with my visit.
To start off there was a $ 5 cover to get in the place. I approached the hostess and she said we could get in no problem, since we were only going to eat. But the bouncer made us pay the cover fee since they had a band playing that they needed to pay. That would normally not been a problem. I enjoy live musuc, but the band played on the right side of the place where the bar was and most of the people celebrating. We didn’t get to see them play since the restaurant was on the left side. So right off the bat, we were down $ 20 for a party of four.
We came in at about 9pm. I’m not sure if it was the timing. It was late. But the hosting staff and waitresses all seemed real young. Some appeared to be even in high school. I’m in my early 30s. When I order my dinner I like to ask for beer pairing recommendations. I asked the waitress what they had on tap, and she named off just a few beers. I asked for a a beer menu, and apparently they didn’t have one. So I’m not sure if maybe the real waitresses were on the right bar side, but it was dissapointing to say the least.
So food. I ordered the corned beef and cabbage. It was decent. Not the worst I’ve ever had but certainly not the best. I would go elsewhere next year to get this Irish staple. We loved their French fries though. They had good seasoning. The beef and Guinness stew was also really good. The shepherd’s pie was ok. And the bangers and mash were underwhelming.
I’m sure if you’re looking to just drink on St Patrick’s Day, their bar atmosphere will be great for you. But as a foodie, I did not have the best experience. And the issues with the waitress and bouncer just left a sour taste in my mouth. So I am never going back. Would give 1 ½ stars overall, but they’re getting 2 since there’s no fractions and the stew and french fries were good. Definitely not coming back next year.

Stopped in Friday with my wife for a fish fry. Great service, ice cold Guinness draught and now the fish fry.
It was a good sized piece, not too big or small. The batter was light crispy bit greasy and delicious. The dinner came with macaroni salad, coleslaw, tarter sauce and lemon. We both opted for the salt potatoes on the side which were perfectly cooked and served lightly buttered.
The bill was very reasonable. Overall fantastic and judging by how busy it was they do it right! Try it out.

After a 10 hour road trip, all you can hope for is some good food. Stopping for gas, we looked for a quick place to eat and thanks to Unilocal we found this spot! Upon arriving, the parking lot was very full– always a good sign. It was very crowded but the weather outside was lovely, so we asked if we could sit on the main porch. The waitress informed us that they had not prepped the area for the season but she was more than happy wipe down the table and bring out a tablecloth. The food was tasty, the beer menu was extensive, and the staff were very accommodating.
P. S. they do annual group trips to Ireland! Very cool.

Ugh! We waited for a table for 1 ½ hours. I am so glad I brought my anti bacterial wipes with me. We watched the hostess dip her rag into a bucket of dirty water to clean off the tables and then would wring out the dirty rag on the carpeting next to the table and leave the table with water all over. We watched one couple having to get napkins to dry off the booth and the table. When we sat down we wiped off the table and sticky menus with our anti bacterial wipes. As hostess was standing at the hostess stand her nose was running so she used her shirt to wipe it several times!
Not enough waitresses for the crowd that was there. We ordered 3 Fish Fries, 2 that were beer battered and another broiled in butter. The fish were not large at all as others are mentioning, but it was tasty. The broiled fish was so hard and dried out that my daughter could not eat it. They did take that one off the bill.
I will never go to Shannons Pub again.

Shannon’s Pub never disappoints (unless you can’t get a table, but that’s only happened to me once on a Saturday night when there was a live band playing). Regardless, go for the Irish specialities or the Fish Fry. The fish fries are huge and come with macaroni salad, coleslaw, and choice of potato, I usually get the salt potatoes. The best value is to get it for lunch, but it’s also a dollar cheaper if you order sometime between lunch and dinner. If you do have any room left afterward, their peanut butter pie is delicious.
Lastly it wouldn’t be a pub without beer. They offer quite a few Irish brews on tap, so try something new! I tried the Kilkenny Irish Red Cream Ale tonight and enjoyed it.

This place was SO GOOD. There was seriously nothing on my plate that I didn’t like, it was completely delicious.
We had the corned beef dinner, and haddock fish and chips. I wish I had gotten a picture of the haddock because the piece of fish was huge. The fries that came with the fish were so good that we both agreed they didn’t need ketchup.
My corned beef was so tender and juicy, the knife sliced through it easily. The portions are gigantic so even though it’s a little on the pricier side, at least you’re getting a real bang for your buck. Based on the meals we had, I would love to go back and try the other dishes.

Going to an Irish pub, I naturally had to get what one thinks about ordering when going to an Irish pub; French onion soup and BBQ chicken wings. That’s not what you were thinking? Oh well, they were both good anyways. The French onion soup had a ton of flavor and a nice thick layer of melted cheese. I practically licked the bowel clean! The wings were also very good delicious. They’ve were good sized and were nice and crispy which is hard to come by for BBQ wings. The service was pretty good only downside was a forgotten drink that was ordered while the waitress was bringing out food for the table but all in all not, much to complain about. The price wasn’t bad either! This place is a nice little pub to chill, have a drink and eat some good food.

LOVE this place! Food is great and the beer is cold! Prices are reasonable, love the live music! I’ve only been a couple of times, but plan on going back when the opportunity arises!

As a student here in Buffalo, I try to take my parents to new places whenever they come up to visit. This time, I chose Shannon Pub, since we decided we were in a pub mood and wanted to stay outside of the city. As it turned out, this was a great decision!
The restaurant is very easily accessible — it’s right on Niagara Falls Boulevard just past where 290 crosses over — and has parking for probably 20 cars. We arrived to a quiet night at the pub, with only a handful of guests at the bar and a few in the restaurant section. We waited a few minutes to be greeted, but not painfully so. Our server was very polite and friendly, and accommodated our request to sit somewhere where we could see the décor well.
The beer selection was sizeable and consisted mostly of Irish imports. There were, however, a handful of local brews and a few German beers, which I assumed to be seasonal.
The menu is neither too large nor too small, and offers something for everyone. I chose the pot pie, and my parents chose a half rack of their ribs and a shepherd’s pie. In addition, we split an order of their poutine as an appetizer. Our main courses came with the choice of salad or soup.
All of the food was delicious. The pot pie was neither too meaty nor too light, as was the shepherd’s pie. The ribs were excellently seasoned. The star of our dinner was the poutine, however, as it was perfectly prepared.
Ultimately, I find it hard to point to any real problems. I would highly recommend Shannon Pub, and hope to stop by again!

Bartenders are awesome, but it smells like a fucking porta potty in the building but the drinks are good so idk

Two moves and several life changes ago, Shannon Pub was my favorite local spot. I had a list of menu items that I’d always order, and my only problem with the place was picking which one to get. The wings, the paddy melt, the stuffed bleu burger and the nachos all vied for the attention of my college-​kid palette. Items like their Reuben and their bangers and mash — good enough to be first-​tier options anywhere in Buffalo — would sometimes be overlooked because of my desire to have the same thing over and over.
That’s one of the great things about Shannon — the consistency. It’s always really, really good. The Guinness is beautifully poured and delicious, the fries are always crispy, and the Caesar salad has, remarkably, tasted exactly the same for the eight years that I’ve been going there.
I’ve been there a handful of times since I moved, including last night, and was happy to learn that it’s still as I remember it. That’s good, because if we’re being honest, I still eat like a college kid. The menu is formatted differently and the bar itself has gotten a facelift, but the whole place has retained its warm, welcoming vibe. Nostalgia is admittedly a factor in giving this place 5 stars, but the overall quality is responsible for creating that feeling in the first place.
Helpful hint: If you are there and the Chicken Finger Poutine is on the menu, get it and don’t ask questions.

Great place friendly staff great you soon as you walk in. Outstanding food. I had the beef on weck it was great. There beer selection is really good the patio was really nice place to eat

Authentic. Yummy yummy food. Great beer selection. Skip the tourist stuff at the falls and eat here. You will be very happy.

I generally love Shannon Pub for their fish fry and salt potatoes. Today, I requested a table by the fireplace and was advised this was okay «as long as you are outta here by 8:15». No kidding, it was 5:02… which, incidentally, disqualified me for the «early bird» price on the fish fry. (I guess they have to stick to the cutoff however — two minutes?!)
The food was okay but I feel the service goes hand in hand to make my restaurant experience enjoyable. In this instance, they failed.

Good food and drinks. I went there on St. Patty’s Day and had the reuben which was pretty good. Went there again a few months later for some drinks with coworkers and we all had a great time. Spacious bar area, although, it does get very crowded. That’s usually a good sign though. Will be back.

I felt like I was with a bunch of tourists at a bar in Ireland. Very good beer cheese soup.

Shannons pub is a great little Irish pub on the Boulevard!
As we walked in for St. Pattys day weekend we where impressed how irish, lively and festive this place was! Live Irish music in all! I enjoyed that a heck of alot to start with!!!
The food here is great!!! Some of the best Irish served food in the area for sure! The Shepards pie I has was tasty as can be and seasoned perfectly! I’d absolutely have it again and I certainly am going to try some other dishes here as well!
I’ll definitely come back! Great food, great atmosphere, great place!

If this were a small plant, it would be the «Shannon Shrub.» If it were an Irish angel it would be the «Shannon Cherub.» If it were in Gaelic, it would be «Shannon Dubbed.» And if it were a sl***y B-​movie actress that probably shouldn’t have been famous and yet was, it would be the «Shannon Doherty.»
However it is none of those things. Instead, it is the Shannon Pub. Named after the beautiful and impressive River Shannon, which begins in the Western portion of Éire (Republic Of Ireland aka Southern Ireland aka the Emerald Isle aka How Many Nicknames Does One Place Need People), and ends here in Western NY. A lot of people think the Erie Canal is a Canal. It’s not. It’s the River Shannon. Now you know. Bell Biv Devoe.
I was extremely impressed by the Shannon Pub. I was not expecting to be. It’s a typical Amherst place… young people, some of them not particularly friendly… the bar guy was extremely friendly though… the Fish Fry was overpriced (in my opinion, at $ 12 plus tax which came to more than 13), but it was also huge. And it’s an Irish pub, and those just don’t float my proverbial vessel. Usually.
Well Shannon Pub took the form book and ripped it up and threw it out their green, Leprechaun-​adorned Irish window, didn’t they.
The fish fry was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. After I’d eaten what must have been a quarter of it, I was already feeling full, because it was THAT heavy… lucky for me that I did stop, as I had purchased it for someone else. Oops.
The main drawback is that it’s mega greasy which explains why it is so filling. But if you like a greasy fish fry, I honestly think this might be the best one in the area. And if it’s not, then spank me with a Guinness-​soaked potato and call me Seamus.
Definitely one of the best fish fries I’ve had in the region… only Buffalo Joe’s on Main St does it better. And that’s just my opinion. If you ask Carly Simon, she will tell you than Nobody Does It Better.
But don’t ask Shannon Doherty. Please.

If you like Irish food you’ll love this place. They have a lot of traditional Irish dishes along with something for everyone. They poor a good Guinness and have a lot of live music and a nice outdoor patio.
I’ve had almost all the Irish specialties on their menu and have not one complaint. Their soups are delicious, sometimes they have beer cheese soup as a special and it’s definitely a must. You can’t go wrong with anything on the menu.

One best Irish Pub around. Live music nearly every weekend if you love Celtic Irish music. There Potatoes soup is out of this world.

This is a decent neighborhood bar with a good kitchen.
They stock a good line of draft beers and an impressive line of irish whiskeys including some I had never seen before.
Lots of flavored vodkas for the ladies
(or whoever drinks flavored vodka — certainly not me)
But it is a comfortable place with VERY FRIENDLY VERY NICE STAFF.
They make a very decent steak salad.
The vegetables in the salad are fresh but are otherwise nothing special.
But the steak is a superior econo-​steak — tender and lots of flavor.
They cut this with lots and lots of blue cheese — and that is just fine by me.
So you are basically chowing down a ton of steak and a ton of blue cheese —
but its healthy — right? — because its a salad.
I like the way these people think.
********I
My base review is printed in its entirety above — and I still think everything I said there.
The following section is written for people who love to Unilocal Review — — -
and who write a lot of Unilocal Reviews.
Here is your bonus track:
Is the Shannon Pub in Tonawanda New York an Irish Restaurant or a neighborhood pub?
Or how do you tell the difference between an Irish restaurant and a neighborhood pub?
Cheap cop out preliminary answer — its both since it has two rooms.
There is the all restaurant room with no bar and no TV — and there is the all bar room with a bar and TV where you can order anything they have on the restaurant menu.
Non-​cop-​out answer:
There are two entertaining complexities in categorizing restaurants:
1) Globalized cuisine — that the food off of one nation’s menu shows up on the menus of a zillion other nations.
Globalization comes in three flavors.
1a) The Unity of English Commonweath food. Irish food and American food are very similar — as are English food Scotch food Canadian food, Australian food New Zealand food and South African food.
The stock of Anglo-​saxon settlers brought their food all over the world.
There are a VERY small number of dishes that travelled less —
So not so many people do Lancashire Hot Pot — making that dish truly English.
However, lots of people do roast beef so even thought that is the quintessential English elegant dinner — it is eaten all over the world.
In the case of Irish –lots of people have borrowed corned beef and cabbage — not so many people eat colcannon.
1b) The fact that people adopt other people’s food left and right. Nothing is more American than pizza and nachos — though in both cases we know where those dishes came from.
1c) Some truly local dishes have clones all over the world.
EVERY part of the world does a fried fish. Call it a parrillada, call it an Irish fish fry, call it a Cape Cod fish fry, call it just fried fish but eat it in Vietnam, in Indonesia, in Korea or Ethiopia.
And yet — this is often a local dish in which people take great pride. (ever go to a Cape Cod restaurant?)
In the case of the Shannon — you can order their Irish pot pie which only they have which is Irish. You can order corned beef and cabbage which is irish but also is heavily new england. You can order their Irish fish fry which is a global dish.
2) Cooks like to cook different things just to keep things interesting in the kitchen and they often like to spread their wings and show their range.
Pretty much ²⁄₃ of the Shannon menu is not at all Irish.
They are located in a Buffalo suburb — so they take pride in their Buffalo Wings.
They do a lot of burgers.
The steak salad with blue cheese that I had was quite fine — and reflecting the chef playing around in the kitchen with a steak and greens figuring out what his or her angle would be.
Cooks are often like actors or actresses who don’t want to be type cast and want to show their dramatic range. The actress who always puts on a cheerleader costume, has illicit sex and then is always killed by the vampire thirty minutes into the movie would love to just once play a diplomat facing an international crisis.
Application to Unilocaling — and an entertaining story.
In Japan I was once taken to a cutlet restaurant that was known throughout the region. There were fifteen kinds of Japanese cutlets on the menu and everyone was eating the cutlets which were justly famous.
The sixteenth and last item after the fifteen kinds of cutlets — was sashimi.
I ordered the Sashimi and my hosts univerally said I was nuts and wasting a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It was the finest Sashimi I had in Japan.
It blew away any of the Sashimi I had in more pretentious all sushi and sashimi places.
It was the culinary high point of the trip.
The cook had always had this capacity to get good fish and do great things to capture its taste.
He or she could never do that in their cutlet house.
But given a chance — the cook totally shined.
So is the Shannon grill an Irish restaurant or a neighborhood pub?
It is both.
Places with good cooks are often places with lots of exciting and unexplored potentials.
And they fit all sorts of different categories.

+ good fish, good service
— sour coleslaw
Came here on Good Friday for the fish fry. Arrived at 4:30pm and it was starting to get busy. If you order the Fish Fry before 5:00pm (the early bird) then it’s only $ 10. We ordered two fish frys. Waitress was friendly. We sat in the dining room where there are a few TVs and lots of tables. The place needs renovations big time, however, the high ceiling is a nice touch.
Our plate came out within 20 minutes, piping hot. Fries are coated with breading, tasty. The beer batter fish we got tasted really fresh, but batter was a little too heavy for me. The coleslaw tasted bad/​funky, really sour. The tuna pasta salad tasted pretty good.
All in all, not a bad meal, but nothing to write home about either.

From the outside this place looks like an aging Irish Pub that had its heyday in the 1980s and probably isn’t much worth visiting anymore (but doesn’t everything on Niagara Falls Blvd?!).
Well, the first fact is pretty much true, the second one not so much ;) It’s definitely worth a visit, not just because it’s simplistically hokey (the Irish memorabilia inside is sure to simultaneously amuse and disgust you), but because it does a few things right: Guinness and Irish food. The stage and sound system are also logistic winners, drawing in a number of touring acts such as Seamus Kennedy, as well as Western NY regulars like the Dave North Trio and the Dady Brothers.
What to try on the menu? The corned beef is EXCELLENT. Thick-​cut, tender, not too fatty — it probably is the best in Buffalo, as the menu shamelessly purports. I’d also recommend the Shepherd’s Pie and Irish Lamb Stew. I always appreciate a place that wants to offer the lamb version of this dish — more traditional, stronger in flavor and more tender.
A fun-​loving pub that marries the down-​to-​earth nature of Buffalo with the meat-​and-​potatoes of Irish immigrant cooking!

This place doesn’t look like much from the outside, but don’t pass it by! We were visiting from out of town and were in the mood for some Irish grub, and we found Shannon Pub on Unilocal.As we pulled up, we kind of went, «Eh, what do you think?» not because it looks bad, but because it looks more like a pure bar than a restaurant. We decided to go in and were rewarded many times over.
Everyone we encountered in the pub was friendly – even the people just walking around and not specifically serving us. There were not many people eating, and the service was quick and excellent.
The food… oh lordy. I’ve never had Irish food like this. The poutine (granted, not Irish), the chicken pot pie, and the shepherd’s pie were absolute home runs. The pastry crust on the chicken pot pie was so soft, flaky, and delicious, I could have just eaten a big plate of crust. Grocery store-​bought pot pies are permanently ruined for me. Great stuff, compliments to the chef.