Review: Canoe (1)
After September’s floods, the classic riverside restaurant rebounds
On a recent sunny Sunday afternoon, the Chattahoochee’s languid waters looked about as menacing as liquid caramel as they flowed past Canoe’s manicured lawn. Women in bright pastels wandered among the flowerpots in front of the restaurant. There was no sign that just six months ago, those same waters rose over the lawn, the flowers, the famously bucolic patio, and in through the restaurant’s lower and then upper dining rooms. In fact, the only sign left of the devastating flood is a small, chest-high mark on the brick wall just beyond the hostess stand that reads “September 21, 2009.”
“You would have been doing the doggie paddle right here,” a waiter told me when he noticed me staring at the line. “The entire place was trashed. But we came together. It was amazing – past employees, customers, friends – everyone wanted to help. And now we’re good as new.”
In fact, the turnaround time for Canoe’s revival was astounding. After just 10 weeks and about a million dollars in cleanup and renovations, the restaurant reopened on Nov. 23, 2009.
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(Photo by James Camp)