Betty's at The Kitch — Restaurant in Town of Mahone Bay

Let me start from the beginning. We enter the restaurant in the middle of the staff having a heated discussion about who is on shift and whose responsibility it is to share which pile of wood is to be used for the oven. It was uncomfortable to say the least. We get seated and place our order. Meanwhile, my daughter can hear the staff discussing that one of the dishes we ordered was not available, but they did not return to tell us this information for another 20 minutes. At this time we said it's ok, he can share our food. The first order to arrive was garlic fingers, however the starter salad never arrived at all. We had reminded the staff that we did not receive our salad. Within a short period of time they did bring it. No one came to the table to ask if more drinks were required so we went to the bar ourselves to get service. I had a cocktail which was not drinkable. The lemonade in the drink was spoiled. We still have not received our pizzas as the first batch got burnt and needed to be remade. This is a good hour into our visit. Finally one of the 3 pizzas makes its way to our table. When my pizza finally made it out of the oven it was given to the table next to us by some man who was there doing repairs to the pizza paddles. This man was not cleanly in his appearance nor did he wash his hands after using his tools. At this point I asked to cancel my pizza which needed to be made for the 3rd time. My son in law asked me to take the baby to the car while they boxed up our 2 pizzas that they were going to comp us for because of all the issues during our visit. We make it to the car only to discover they only gave us one of our "comped" pizzas. This was totally fine with me because at this point I am completely disappointed and in total shock at what transpired at this establishment. So as you can see I could not rate the food because I never got any. I also did not rate the service because it was appalling. Why you ask? We received an apology from what I am assuming was the training supervisor. Her apology was to blame the trainee rather than take the responsibility herself. Let me add one more thing. The table beside us also never got their correct order either. They were busy...

Oh Betty’s! You have so much potential, but sadly, things have not improved much since you opened.

Your wood-fired pizzas are tasty, but the toppings are still sparse. We had the Hutton delivered to our table once with no juniper ham and apples. The waitress failed to mention when she took the order that they’d run out of those ingredients! The cook delivered the pizza to the table that way. WOW! It’s not a Hutton at that point, it’s a Marguerita - and you shouldn’t be charging the same price for it. That’s basic restaurant etiquette.

Your appetizers are good but not great. The small portion sizes don’t jive with the high prices.

Then there’s the service…or lack thereof. You seem to have a revolving door when it comes to staff, and it shows. It feels like a constant scramble, and it’s not fun to see or hear as diners.

One time, the pizza cook walked out just as we arrived. He didn’t return. We weren’t sure what to do. We could have made the pizza ourselves, considering we were sitting next to the oven. We waited a long time for someone to show up to replace him.

On another occasion, we waited over an hour for pizzas that take less than 5 minutes to make. We did get comp’d once when the service was poor, but that wasn’t our goal. We just wanted to enjoy a summer lunch date.

We walked in one afternoon and the top of the bar was filled with dirty dishes and glasses. We wondered it we had misread their opening hours. We had not! We didn’t even get a hello.

The experience of sitting in the courtyard was marred because the staff was getting ready for the next rush. It ruined our lunch date. It felt as if we were in the way.

Betty, we love to support local, but we’ve been here, done on a number of occasions over the past few years, and it’s time to move on. We wanted to love you because the vibe and the food have promise. But you’ve let us down too...

I wouldn’t recommend if you are gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan. Sadly I heard great things so I decided to go for my birthday and a week before when I made the reservation. While doing so it’s asked for my dietary restrictions, which wow I thought was amazing and thought cared about. This doesn’t happen often. I was very excited to go since I knew they were prepared that I was gluten free and cow dairy free. We get there and I noticed there was hardly anything on the menu I could eat so when they came to the table I asked what I could eat since they were prepared for me coming. They do have gluten free crust (sadly was one of the worst I’ve had) but I ordered a gf pizza and noticed they didn’t have goat cheese so I asked for the vegan cheese and they didn’t HAVE any even tho it’s on the menu. What is pizza without cheese. They knew I was coming, it was my birthday and I got a pizza crust with no cheese, 5 pieces of bacon, 6 sundried tomatoes, arugula and a TON of balsamic. So much that I couldn’t eat it:( my husband is Italian and a pizza lover and he couldn’t finish his either :( why ask what my dietary restrictions are if you aren’t going to do something about it. If I would’ve known, I wouldn’t have wasted my birthday dinner on a restaurant where I couldn’t even eat anything which nowadays doesn’t happen very often. I have been eating this way for over 20 years and haven’t been this disappointed since I started eating this way :( I’m not even someone to write bad reviews but I sent a message telling them what happened and also explained to the waiter when I was there what happened and he didn’t say a thing and walked away and they didn’t do a thing when I told them as well. It’s not a place to go if you have...