Canoe Club, Orland Park, IL (bar/restaurant)

Name:Canoe Club
Type:restaurant/bar
Street:15200 S. 94th Ave.
City:Orland Park
State:IL
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:(708) 460-9611
Status:operational

Description:
The bar features a shark tank, the room's unrivaled centerpiece. Other tropical touches include a poster of Polynesian ladies doing the hula and a poster that showcases a dozen or so tropical drinks. Flat-screen monitors adorn the room, with the sole purpose of playing scenes from the ocean, apparently. "It's like a new, under-decorated living room," one thirsty working gal remarked, though a less cynical colleague called it "clean."

A patio punctuated with big torches is primed for warm weather, when Sunday luaus will be hosted complete with the roasted pig. A stage hosts live musicians every night. Expect lots of steel drums.

Seating: Seating is plentiful on the bar side of the Canoe Club. Inside, there are cozy corner booths, plenty of bar tables and 116 coveted bar seats surrounding the sharks.

The bathrooms: Thoroughly tiki-fied with flattering lighting.

• from Daily Southtown
  http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsliving/101ldpub.htm

[ Edited by: fijifingers on 2005-03-25 10:57 ]

[ Edited by: fijifingers on 2005-03-25 10:59 ]

[ Edited by: fijifingers on 2005-03-25 11:03 ]

Amenities: A patio punctuated with big torches is primed for warm weather, when Sunday luaus will be hosted complete with the roasted pig. A stage hosts live musicians every night. Expect lots of steel drums.

This touches on the "can tiki and caribbean be mixed?" topic. Luau, roasted pig: Pacific Island. Steel drums: Caribbean (specif. Trinidadian). Hmmm. Will they also do the limbo to Don Ho songs?

L .......that's what I thought too. Maybe there was a long land bridge .....to get them steel drums over there .........W.

But ........I think it was just the ignorance of.....or ...a tip off that they have a young reporter at the restaurant review desk. Perhaps .......Jimi "Tiki" Olsen.

[ Edited by: fijifingers on 2005-03-28 14:10 ]

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer on 2005-04-03 22:14 ]

At the beginning of March I flew to Chicagoland to see my family and my parents took me out for my b-day dinner to the Canoe Club. This is a new tiki influenced restaurant with food in the Trader Vic's vein. When we got there the place was packed. We got seated right away though. The inside is really nice. There is a fish tank behind the hostess desk, then behind that is a dining room with a huge wall waterfall with changing colors. On either side of the waterfall are wine bottles and a tiki face carving at the top. There was another dining room behind that. And there was also a huge bar that has a very large shark tank in it. Not lots of tikis up but very nice, some tapa cloth on the walls as well.

We started off with a mai tai and a drink I think was called the Lava flow and flatbread. I had the scallops on top of pasta, I think my dad had chicken and my mom had prawns. All were very good. They have cheap, tiny desserts for $2.25 that are served in tall shot glasses. We had pineapple bread pudding, key lime pie and chocolate mousse. All good as well. We rolled out of there and walked into the separate bar to see the shark tank. Huge bar that was packed. When we left at 8:30pm I overheard a man saying it was a 2 hour wait for dinner. This place was pretty large and packed. I guess they are going to open 5 other locations in Chicagoland at some point.

I thought the decor was nice, could of course use some more tikis. Here I some photos I took. This is the first time i have tried to post photos, so bare with me:

went a couple weeks ago, drinks werent that good, food pricey, crowd lame, but definately had a few cool elements......hope they get more carvings (hint hint lake surfer) and maybe some more cool lighting/decor(hint hint tipsy mcswager) the place has some potental.....loved the fact they were playin blue hawaii on their big plasma tvs

Did this one close?

On 2005-05-01 22:53, hala bullhiki wrote:
went a couple weeks ago, drinks werent that good, food pricey, crowd lame, but definately had a few cool elements......hope they get more carvings (hint hint lake surfer) and maybe some more cool lighting/decor(hint hint tipsy mcswager) the place has some potental.....loved the fact they were playin blue hawaii on their big plasma tvs

actually, i made the tikis on either side of the waterfall wine rack....they were my humble attempts at carving foam...i believe there are pics somwhere on t.c. in another post as this topic was mentioned about the time the place was opening a few years back

i tried to hook up lake surfer with making some more tikis for the place, but the owner kept giving him the run around, so he eventually stopped trying...can't blame him.

The Canoe Club has sunk.

New investors have bought the building - no word on whether they'll keep the concept.