Kindred Food + Drink — Restaurant in Edmonton

Absolutely awful. Buckle in folks, this place deserves 0 stars but I’ll give 1 because there’s no 0 option.

We ignored what should have been the first red flag. This place was empty on an otherwise bustling Saturday night. Every other restaurant in downtown had waitlists. This place was virtually empty. I think just 3 tables were occupied with unhappy patrons but other than that, it was a ghost town.

We started off this nightmare experience by ordering a bottle of wine. Simple enough. Well they brought the wrong bottle of wine out. A less expensive wine, because they “ran out” of the wine we ordered. We pointed out the error and it was brushed off. When asked if this wine is the same price, the server stated “yea same price”, which makes no sense. Sounds like the server was just making stuff up. so we decided to order another bottle instead. Server took the order and came back AGAIN with a wrong bottle. We decided to have mercy on her and just accepted this wrong bottle. We had to open the bottle ourselves, due to the server not knowing how to uncork a bottle. After our first sip, we realized it was warm 🙄. We didn’t want to create more of an issue and just accepted the warm wine.

I tried to order some pepperoni pizza but was informed that they ran out of dough 😔. I ordered something else off the menu but then when the food was brought out they must’ve found dough somewhere in the back because they brought out the pepperoni pizza.

Lastly, at the end of the night I ordered my favourite dessert Affogato (ice cream + espresso). I got a scoop of ice cream without the espresso! I asked the server why I didn’t get espresso and her response was because most people don’t like espresso. Like what?!?! Why wouldn’t I just get ice cream then?! I asked for the espresso and she told me the espresso machine was off and could not be turned back on. Then I asked for a refund at which point she talked to her manager and the espresso was eventually brought out at which point my ice cream had already melted 😩.

I talked to the manager to express my disappointment and he took my name and number to perhaps make me feel a bit better.

Worst experience...

We decided to check this place out before a hockey game due to the proximity to Rogers Place and as a spot we hadn't been before. We ordered the bread starter, I had the hoagie and my wife had the chicken Parm. For some reason it never really clicked for me that this was an Italian restaurant prior to going in, but they're not really explicit about that. Guess I should have looked at the menu more closely. I didn't see the chicken pot pie and fish and chips, but maybe that's just on the lunch menu? The bread was probably the best part, honestly. The ricotta truffle dip was great, but I didn't much care for the sun-dried tomato tapenade. The bread to dip ratio was also way off & they were going to take the mostly uneaten dip away, and when I asked for more bread this seemed like an unusual request for some reason. I also would have kept the dip either way (to dip my fries in.) They did bring some crustinis though, which was appreciated. & As for the fries - not great! Maybe they were made in house, but I suspect they most likely were from frozen. Not what you would expect at this price point in my opinion. The lack of decent fries in YEG is a pet peeve of mine. Such an easy, cheap way to elevate the experience. The hoagie itself was okay. Again the bread was really good but the sandwich overall was just kind of bland. Nothing exceptional. I tried my wife's Parm as well and it was just okay too... the spaghetti was kind of mushy and it seemed under-seasoned. Beer menu was also very small. Overall - kind of disappointed considering what the bill was. The service was good though, no complaints there. It's also a cool location looking out at the Ice District and...

I made a reservation a week in advance because I was genuinely excited to try this place and watch Game 5 of the Western Final. We showed up on time, even after dealing with traffic and parking. But right from the start, it was a mess.

There was no hostess, which would’ve been fine if there had been some sort of system in place. Instead, a kind but clearly not knowledgeable busgirl told me she needed an iPad to check us in—but it was being used by the waiter. We stood there awkwardly for 5–10 minutes. Only after she noticed how frustrated I looked did she finally tell us to just pick any table. The place was practically empty—just one large table of eight, us, and a couple that had just walked in.

Then the waiter came by for drinks, and we were told that most of the draft beers listed on the menu weren’t even available. On game night. That’s ridiculous. There were only three beers to choose from really.

After we got our drinks, the waiter didn’t say a word about when he’d be back to take our food order. No communication, no urgency, no care. At that point, I’d had enough. I told my family to finish their drinks so we could leave and go to Joey’s down the street, where I knew we’d at least get decent service and be able to enjoy the game.

It’s really disappointing, because I wanted to like this place. But the lack of organization, poor service, and limited draft beer menu—especially with barely any customers in the restaurant—just shows a serious management problem. There are way too many good restaurants within a few blocks to waste time on one that can’t get the...