Callahan’s Beach House

Wouldn’t be open if it weren’t for the location. Mediocre to below average food and service. Nothing terrible though, and a nice place to have a few drinks!

If you want terrible service and watery beer, this place is for you! My wife and I stopped in for our anniversary and I’ll never go again. It took 30 mins for our server to take our order and we waited 10 mins AFTER our food arrived to get cutlery. Needless to say the food was cool by that time. To top it all off, the draft beer was obviously watered down. We had two pitchers of Rickard’s White and it tasted like Corona (1 part beer, 3 parts water)! Terrible!

Great view! It’s worth going here for the location but not so much for the food or the service. We went on a Friday for lunch so it wasn’t too busy. I ordered my fish broiled but it arrived fried. It has been so long since ordering that I ate it anyway rather than wait even longer. The fried lake fish was good. I will look around for other places in Port Dover.

I’ve lived in and around Port Dover my whole life and Callahan’s has always consistently sucked. The food sucks, the service often sucks, just one big pile of suck.
People like to defend Callahan’s saying ‘You come for the atmosphere, its beach front!’. Well this is the exact reason that makes me despise this place even more! You have THE MOST PRIME PIECE OF BEACH FRONT PROPERTY IN DOVER, you could have the most awesome restaurant if you actually cared about being a good restaurant instead of ripping off gorbys who want to have the primo view.
Boo to you Callahan’s. Over priced garbage tourist rip off artists. Head over to to Knechtel’s or the Catch for a real Dover fish and atmosphere experience.

I had no choice but to give it one star and it didn’t even deserve that our drinks were so flat and all four times she brought back still flat so we changed from coke to sprite the sprite tasted like an old musty suit case! The wings were like the turkey from national lampoons vacation dry as a shoe TERRIBLE!!! My husbands steak was supposed to be a strip steak it looked liked a hockey puck and after all this terrible stuff I really expected manager to get off her ass at bar and come and do something she did nothing but sit at bar drinking her drink not to mention after taking my drinks back 4 times and still wasn’t satisfied I still had to pay for them I will never ever go back waitress didn’t care at all I even told her u need to go taste the soft drinks she said no my manager will I’m sure she will since she’s sucking back everything else do not go eat here absolutely terrible food and service!!!

Service is ‘detached’ from you the customer, and I don’t think this place has been cleaned in any way for 10 years or so. the outside patio is always dirty and the inside is still a la 1975.
To top it off, the food is not impressive at all, it’s one notch up from fast food. the staff seems to ‘drop’ the tasteless food plates on your table, at their leisure. Just not a good feel at all.
BUT they are the only place on the beach so I guess the owner knows this and doesn’t care how his staff performs because they are always packed. AND the staff gives this off too. Nobody really cares here. About anything. Especially you as the customer. Nobody cares.

0 stars. (Won’t post with 0) so I had to put one. I didn’t even get to try the food. Went on labour day long weekend so we expected a bit of a wait. 20min to get a table, but there were 12 of us so not bad. Went downhill after this.
Clam chowder luke warm at best, ask to heat it up and came out half hour later still luke warm. Then waited 2 hours more to get our food and the fries were freezing cold, I think they just took them out of the bag and dumped them on our plate. Didn’t even bother with the perch. Just left. The waitress said it was the busiest day of the year what did we expect! Ummm it’s Port Dover, I rode motorcycle that day and you expect me to believe labour day is your busiest day. Get a grip, even if it was, it’s a restaurant, they should be serving hot food in a timely manner. never ever again.
EVER!

Huge mistake. Saturday night long weekend. Out of control children running around restaurant. Super hot inside and uncomfortable. Inattentive staff.
Perch was good but the crab cake dinner was awfull.
May try again in the off season.

Solid place to enjoy a casual meal overlooking the beach. The place has prime real estate with a long patio with lots of seating by the water. The menu is pretty extensive, with pub classics, salads plus some vegetarian options clearly marked. I came in a group of 6 and we all either got burgers or fish — safe bets at a place like this.
My cheeseburger was okay, just a tiny bit too dry. Garden side salad was pretty standard. I tried a bite of the fish and chips (perch) and they were tastier. They came with a large serving of coleslaw, fries, and tartar sauce. The snack size is probably adequate for most people unless you are really hungry.
Service was friendly and efficient. Also, for some reason 2 out of 6 forks at our table were all bent out of shape? I have no idea what they are doing to their forks over there… All in all, you come to Port Dover for the beach and Callahan’s Beach Restaurant is a solid dining option in the area.

Before you skip the actual review, please note that my 4-​star rating is based on the overall experience and atmosphere.
The service itself was pretty good. The place was pretty busy which I found a little surprising considering we went there on a Monday afternoon. With this said, we waited for about 20-​minutes which wasn’t too bad. We had a gorgeous view of the beach and the lake plus it was the most perfect day, weather-​wise.
The menu is quite overwhelming but you are given many different and unique food items so I guess the price was pretty reasonable.
[Starters]
Calamari — Crispy fried calamari (just the rings) served with what tasted like a soya sauce, vinegar and garlic base sauce. If you’re Filipino then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Thought it was an interesting choice of dipping sauce and I personally didn’t mind it. The serving size itself though was a bit of a disappointment as it cost (my friend) about $ 10. With that size, the charge should be no more than $ 7.50/$ 8. It didn’t even come with the tentacles so was it even made with fresh squid? 3.5÷5
[Main]
Canadian Grilled Salmon — Served with a variety of sides but I chose the mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes with gravy. If you’re thinking of the mashed potatoes, definitely get the gravy. Not because the gravy was great (it was actually quite bland) but because the potatoes were pretty dry. Can’t really tell if they’re real or not but I think they were real potatoes. Regardless, it was very bland so I put a lot of pepper on it. Vegetables were good. Salmon itself, well I was expecting a larger filet but with the amount of potatoes (2 scoops) and vegetables, you won’t be hungry after. Even though the salmon wasn’t as large as expected, it was grilled perfectly. I was actually very happy with the salmon itself. 4.5÷5 (this would’ve been a 5 if the salmon was bigger).
Would I go back? Sure. I’d love to try out other things on the menu. Plus, you can’t beat those views!

As everyone else has pointed out the patio and the views are the main draw. We couldn’t get a spot on the patio, as there were a couple of unbused dirty tables and no sign of any patio staff to do so. We found a spot inside as we were only a party of two, but they were telling groups of more than four that it was a 45 minute wait.
I will take any chance I have to eat fresh perch, and it was very good, although I could have had the exact same perch at the food stand across the road. The sides were average. Service seemed a bit spotty, there were a few tables around us that were quite unhappy with both the service and the food, but we didn’t have any complaints.
This is a restaurant for the middle of the road tourist crowd, but the views and patio are worth stopping in for.

My wife and I have visited this restaurant several times over the last couple of years and we really like it. The food is often better than expected for a small town, their shrimp cocktail is more fresh than in Florida, and their view is second to none. If you find yourself in Dover, winter or summer, I strongly suggest going to the beach house for a visit!

Sound this place, right on the beach, when I say right on beach I mean you couldn’t get any closer unless you were in the lake.
I decided to eat here, as it was so close, there was three of us and we all had different things, myself, bacon cheese burger, and fries, all perfectly cooked, very nice food.
All family had, fish and chips, English style and one was yellow perch piece,
Once again, cooked perfectly, mince beer batter, lots of fries, nice salad,
The views while eating we’re awesome, little to cool for outside, but sat right next to window and the sunset over the lake was beautiful.
Desserts my favourite no matter where I go, I had there chocolate lighthouse,
Basically dense, moist very nice flavoured moose, with a little biscuit base, with berrys and strawberry around,
Uncle had apple pie, warmed, well that was little disappointment as it was micro waved and well it turns to soggy sloppy pastry,
Waitress was very nice, looked after us well, just unfortunately only thing was the food is a little slow, but tastes nice, so if your patient then it’s well worth it, three meals no starters about 45 mins fish and chips and burger is a fast meal normally.
Thanks still and enjoy all that go
Ps it’s rather busy aswell, still can get tables,

Its the beach front patio. That’s why you go here.
It’s THE Port Dover experience.
The food? Meh.
The menu is HUGE, and has everything from sirloin steaks, big salads, to pasta.
What Dover is famous for: fresh fish, specifically PERCH.
I got a ‘snack size’ fish (3 small meaty pieces of perch) & chips, which came with a generic but tasty enough lightly mayo based coleslaw, 2 white buns (no idea why) and tarter sauce. The tarter sauce was NOT good. It was a sweet mess.
Thank goodness the fish is fresh and flavorful enough to eat on its own. It was lightly battered in a beer batter, and it was amazing. It was by far the star on the plate.
It was large enough to share with my lunch guest.
Also got a piña colada; which arrived at my table with a dollop of whipped cream on it. Interesting ;)
Tasted pretty good. Again, nothing special. The plastic disposable glasses kinda add a different kind of casualness to the place, but hen again, you’re sitting on cheap patio furniture so …
The very few girls (there were only 2 the Monday afternoon I was there) who work the patio hustle, which is impressive, and still tend to everyone efficiently and remain calm and friendly. Even during the week, expect to wait for an outside patio table. But trust me, it’s worth it for the view and breeze off the water.

Great Summer Patio Looking out on Port Dover Beach and Lake Erie. Chose a table that is covered or has umbrella when its sunny and hot. Port Dover beach and landscape reminds of Waikiki or Manhattan Beach near L.A. with its long white sand beaches and blue sky for nearly as far as the eye can see. Callahans is great place to eat lunch or dinner drink some beers enjoy the beach and water views. The salads we ordered very good fresh tasty and satisfying.