The Muar House Cafe’

I hate to say this be this business has closed.
It was one of my favorite little café.

Super cute place, 2^nd floor has sofas to lounge, good service and delicious lunch fare. Plus really good gelato! Turkey and corn chowder was excellent!

We’ve been coming here ever since they opened and I’ve never eaten anything that wasn’t delicious! The location is ideal — right next to the water with picnic benches to sit on and watch the water. New flavors of gelato always pop up because everything is homemade which I love. I’ve even put in requests for flavors and they try it out! They offer regular ice cream, gelato made with milk, and gelato made with a water base which are typically fruit flavors. They also serve awesome paninis, deli sandwiches, wraps, soup, salads, and coffee. The AC is always on and we often find ourselves there for at least an hour to enjoy the atmosphere. Great place for a casual meal or a scoop (or 3) of ice cream.

Excellent lunch location. Good menu especially Salads. Don’t forget to save room for the gelato. The lake is beautiful to look at. Getting watermelon as a side instead of chips was a good choice for me.
I will definitely make a stop here again.

I visit this place every time I am in town– the sandwiches and salads are wonderful! They will give you samples of the different gelatos, and the staff is friendly and willing to answer any questions or give recommendations. I didn’t care for their coffee, but that’s not a huge reason to go there anyway. Great place to enjoy lunch or a nice dessert by the lake.

Can’t recommend enough the chicken caesar wrap. I went into lunch here wondering how good a wrap could possibly be. yes it was that good!
Line to order can be a little slow but it moves. After you place your order you grab a seat and they bring your food to you. This can take awhile, but it’s worth it.
I also heard the roast beef panini is spot on. I will definitely be back

Came here yesterday at 8:45 to get gelato with my friend and her sister for my friend’s birthday. Their posted hours say that they are open until 9PM, but the lights were off and the doors were locked when we got there. We weren’t the only other people there, either; besides us, there were two couples and two families of four that had come to get ice cream. One woman and her daughter knocked on the door and someone eventually opened it, but I don’t know what was said — just that after a moment’s discussion, the door was shut again. Everyone was turned away. Totally unimpressed.

I miss this place so much! Their chicken wraps are pretty good and the view from upstairs out the windows facing the lake is great. The seating upstairs is so cute and they have some games by the couches. The seats right next to the window upstairs are so nice because it feels like eating at a bed and breakfast. Definitely one of my fav places in Canandaigua.

The Muar House is my favorite place for lunch when in Canandaigua. The food is always good — best chicken caesar wraps ever — and the staff is friendly. Add to it the beautiful location, and you have a perfect lunch destination. It’s always a bummer when they close for the winter!
We’ve also had some nice working lunches with our laptops there and their WiFi works well. Definitely recommend this café.

Excellent food, great view of the lake, and good customer service. Highly recommend this place for lunch/​coffee.

Parking can be an issue, due to the place being on the waterfront by the park where kayakers, sailboards, paddle boards, etc launch.
You walk into a very small area to place your order. Not much seating inside or on the patio. They must rely on take away for all the folks doing watersports or eating in the park?
Looking for something light and outdoor seating. I ordered the soup of the day «Chicken and Dumpling»; my husband the ham/​cheese Panini. They only offer drinks in bottles/​cans :-/​The soup was basically ALL dumplings, no broth, no chicken… very disappointing. Later I would find out that they scraped the bottom and I had the last cup of the day… they should have given it to me for free as a sample, not charge me full price, without warning me what I was getting. For that, they get majorly knocked down.
The Panini sandwich was underwhelming. Deli sliced ham, cheese and mustard sauce.
Too many other restaurants around the area, I would try those.
However, the Raspberry Gelato was fabulous… a little pricey, but maybe they should stick to the Gelato as their mainstay?

Sitting outside on their deck overlooking Lake Canandaigua on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. Enjoying a Turkey and Spinach panani with fruit on the side. Ice cold Birch beer to wash it down. Great place and the prices are just right. We are enjoying this as I sure you will also.

Went there for lunch on the weekend. We ordered a 3-​cheese grilled cheese sandwich and a turkey spinach sandwich. Both were excellent. They were perfectly grilled with the bread being a nice, light-​medium brown — no burning at all. They were seasoned nicely and just yummy. Unfortunately, they were so generous that we didn’t have room for ice cream which we really wanted to try. The only minus was that service was extremely slow. It was about 1:30 when we got there and the place wasn’t even half full. Still it took a good 25 minutes to get our sandwiches. But given that it was a nice day and we had nothing else we had to do, that wasn’t so awful.

This little place is a favorite of mine. I come for the beautiful lake views (the café tables upstairs are tucked right into the windows… perfect), the friendly service, and the food and drinks as well. The interior décor is just adorable. I love that the place is like a house, with tables, chairs, and couches in every room, plus magazines and board games in the living-​room-​esque upstairs section. A downside is that the homey interior causes some guests to treat the place like their actual living room, sprawling and talking loudly, but that’s a problem with the customers themselves, not with the café.
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned GELATO yet? All summer Muar House Café serves an array of amazing ice cream and gelato flavors – there are new flavors every time I come. And their portions are actually reasonable – you don’t have to force yourself to eat a tower of ice cream when you order a small. Yay! I’ve had a couple of their paninis and salads, and they are quite good, as café fare goes. As for the service, I’ve seen the same staff members there for a few years now, and they are always phenomenal. I am always recommending this place to people I meet. It’s cute, friendly, inexpensive, and unique, and I mean, come on. The GELATO.

I have lived in Canandaigua for three years, and a wonderful part of summers here is my wife’s & my weekend tradition of paninis and gelato! The food is relatively simple fare, and it’s not a ten-​page menu… this isn’t a full restaurant, it’s a ice-​cream shop that also does soup-​n-​sandwich kind of stuff.
But don’t sell it short: there’s diversity enough in the sandwiches, wraps and paninis to satisfy most tastes, and it’s usually done really well. Their paninis are invariably hot, buttery and delicious. The wraps are good, too. They often have panini and/​or wrap «specials» that are indeed, something special and different… not just rebranded regular-​menu items. Their cookies are large (5 to 6 inches in diameter) and tasty (especially when heated) and I love the «Health Cookie» as they call it. (it’s not terribly healthy, but with lots of berries and nuts it’s very delicious!)
If desired, they’ve got a solid selection of regular and flavored coffees, both hot, iced and frozen. This is no Starbucks, but if you just want an after-​lunch cup of joe with maybe a little extra zing, it’ll do nicely.
Now the food is pretty darn good, but it’s the view that really makes this place great. Muar House is about 50ft from the water’s edge of Canandaigua Lake and they have a large porch with tables and umbrellas for outdoor dining and a SPECTACULAR view. Straight ahead is the Lake, either side is the lovely Kershaw Park. And if the weather’s not so great, there’s plenty of nice views from the first or second floor dining rooms.
Parking can be a little tight during high summer thanks to the popularity of Kershaw Park overall, but at worst you’ll have to park over at Steamboat Landing next door and walk about 100ft across the canal bridge. Speaking of walking, when you’re done with your meal, you’ll have about two or three dozen flavors of ice cream and gelato for dessert, with a variety of sizes, cones, waffle cones, dips and toppings. Then enjoy a pleasant walk along the Lake through the Park while having died-​and-​gone-​to-​heaven-​tasting gelato.
I will confess that the soups are on the basic side. Given the small size of the kitchen I doubt they’re cooked on site, and we’re probably getting something from the Wegmans supermarket a few blocks away, but frankly the soups usually taste good enough that I don’t really care. (hey, Wegmans does make excellent soup) And considering how flavorful and exotic the paninis can be, the soups make an good «hearty, basic-​food» counterpoint.
I have always found the service to be excellent, but I imagine our experience is a little skewed there: we’re regulars and they know us by name now. Still, even before we were «regulars» we got good service. And the only time I recall the service being on the slow side was when the place was packed to the gills with people, both at tables and walk-​ins for ice cream. I’d deem that wholly understandable. The rest of the time, the food shows up pretty quick and pretty tasty!
Whether you’re looking for a tasty treat on a hot summer’s day, or a delicious soup-​n-​sandwich meal, I’d say you can’t go wrong with Muar House. My only complaint is that they’re not open during the dreadful winters here. I can understand that (no customers when the Park’s closed and the Lake frozen!) but nevertheless I do dearly miss our Muar House paninis from November to April!

Excellent service. Terrific atmosphere. Gelato is great. Food is good quality but a little pricey. I fish at Lagoon Park (w/​in walking distance) with my kids all the time and we always get Gelato and/​or coffee here. My 1^st visit was early this summer (2009) and I have been there at least once or twice a week since. Indoor area is very clean and inviting; upstairs area with couches etc. An excellent place to unwind w/​a newspaper, magazine or book. I don’t see a lot of local college students there, probably a $ issue, but I would definitely frequent this place to get a premium hot beverage and contemplate my GPA :).

Went here after watching the Mambo Kings and RPO at CMAC. Bright colors inside, very clean too. Can something be exciting and inviting? If so, that’s what the Muar House is.
Gelato is amazing! I had the zabajone, which tasted just like the sweet wine-​based dessert, and shared some Donatella, which you’ll love if you love chocolatey, hazelnutty Nutella. Good stuff.

I just went to this place with a buddy of mine in NY. I had the Italian panini and the chai latte. They were both delicious. They also have a great atmosphere there. There were a few large couches to relax on.