Happy Traveller Cafe & Bistro

Simply excellent. It was surprising that walking around Guelph centre town there wasn’t much to catch our eye, until we turned the corner and saw 2 patio restaurants on the boardwalk across from the kids play fountain.
After checking out the menu, we decided to stay here. Now, I usually stay far away from Asian (inspired) dishes unless I’m at an asian restaurant, but it was difficult to do. Their menu is eclectic, and includes butter chicken, pad thai, rice paper rolls, curry soup, quinoa salad among others.
There’s something for everyone here regardless of dietary restriction and there’s options to make things gluten free.
We had the curry soup (very flavourful) and paired nicely with the veggie rice paper roll dipped in a house made sauce. I had the Peanut Pad Thai, SO tasty. Could have gone spicier, but it was a little different than traditional as it rolled around in creamy house made peanut sauce. If you like chinese dan dan noodles, you’ll love this. I got mild, and could have used more of a kick.
Share this one — it’s heavy.
As we finished, I didn’t want to look at a dessert menu, as I was sure that I would want to eat something and I was already full up.
Prices are very good and our meal was $ 26 before taxes.
The staff was super friendly and my water was never empty. Free wifi, ask for the password. I would totally come back here if every in Guelph.

Sorry to say… it has closed down .
It is a great place to get vegetarian, vegan and gluten free food. The staff was super friendly and helpful. My favorite is their homemade veggie burger served on gluten free bread. When I asked what brand of bread they used since it was so good I was pleased to hear that they actually bake it in house! The soups and salads are also excellent. Everything is made from scratch and fresh.

In Guelph if you mention Carden St and Construction, most people sigh, because of the on going problem that really affected local business’ in a negative manner. Carden st Café which was a Guelph institution closed, but The Happy Traveller has recently opened up, taking its place. Breakfast is my favourite meal to go out, and i decided to come here for breakfast last weekend. When we arrived, there wasn’t a hostess at the door, so we were told by someone in the kitchen to take a seat anywhere, we were the first customers. We decided to try two items, which were the standard breakfast plate, and buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup.
For the breakfast plate we ordered it with the bacon, and it was delicious, i just think for $ 6.25, there should have been for than three small pieces. We ordered our eggs over easy, unfortunately they came hard. For the potatoes, they were extremely inconsistently sliced, and were deep fried, i wish they would have been cooked on the flat top. Since the pieces were so small and thin, they were more like potato chips instead of home fires. The server didn’t ask if we wanted jam with our toast, and we had to wait about 5 min for her to come around so that we could get some.
For the pancakes, they said that they were made with buttermilk, even though they were pretty dense. They had a great flavour, but should have been fluffier. I applaud them for using real maple syrup, and the price was reasonable. Also the fruit that accompanied it was nice and ripe.
The service could have been better, the place wasn’t packed but they could have used an additional server that would have limited the wait time while she was helping out the other tables.
Overall, it is a great addition to the Guelph restaurant scene, the food was good, and they are still new so i am sure they will work the kinks out.