The Modest Butcher Kitchen + Market, West Kelowna — Restaurant in West Kelowna

I want to start this review by stating after moving to the area a couple of years ago we had found this to be our go to for a good meal. We have been 4 times prior all on special occasions. Every time prior was excellent! This time my wife made a reservation for 2 for her birthday several weeks in advance. We ended up having a friend from out of town staying with us and we wanted to take her for an excellent meal. We wanted to change the reservation from 2 to 3 people. We tried calling x2 only to get a voicemail saying to email them. We did. For 2 days nobody replied. We ended up having to drive there to ask. We were concerned the resaurant might be close to covid capacity and there might not be space available. They told us no problem and changed it to 3 people. When we arrived to our reservations we were shocked to see how busy it was. There seemed to be no limited capacity , spacing of tables or plastic curtains between tables. Just a fully packed place. Seemed like business as usual. There was no 6 feet spacing. I had 2 feet between my back and the back of the person at the table behind me. I noticed a man that worked there he looked like a supervisor who was only wearing his mask around his mouth not his nose. This made us uneasy as my wife is 6 mo. Pregnant. This is unacceptable. We started by ordering drinks. After 10 mins the waitress returned to tell us the drinks would be a bit longer as the bar was backed up. We asked if the meatbombs were good appy and she told us that was a very good choice!. The meat bombs arrived literally within 2 mins of ordering(they are deep fried) They were not hot in temperature. They came before the drinks arrived. They were not what we were expecting at all. We dove in with intrigue. These were just awful! Over powering flavor of nutmeg which did not belong. When the waitress asked how was the appy? We told her it was not very good at all and we didnt enjoy it. She told me they have been getting a lot of negative reviews on them and proceded to remove the plate.Hmmmm when i ordered them you said that was a great choice! She then returned to remove the small plates we were eating our meatbombs on and told us to hold onto our used silverware for the main course. Our silverware was full of meatbombs and we found this totally awkward as she walked away and left us holding dirty silverware. We all ordered the burger. Wifes burger was cooked perfectly. Mine the patty was over cooked. Our friends burger was awful. The egg was way over cooked. She basically had a hard boiled egg on top of her burger. She was trying to pick it out with her fingers which was not easy ...melted cheese etc. When the waitress came to clear the plates she asked, " how was everything?" Our friend told her, " my burger was not very good the egg was way over cooked and the yolk did not burst like the other 2 burgers" The waitress replied, " o thats too bad. How was everything else?" Everything else? Ya the fries and ketchup were just fantastic. Our friend ordered the featured creme bule for dessert. This too was not good. The flavors were bizarre. The candied cranberries were super sour and not edible along with merangue tubes that taste like toothpaste. Just not a good dessert. Had to walk through a skinny path lined with people to get from our table to the door to leave. Not a good experience whatsoever. I am not sure if this was an off night or staffing issues during Covid? I would not be so quick to reccommend The Modest Butcher after...

We arrived a little bit early, they told us that our table wasn’t quite ready it was being set. We were still waiting for two other couples, so that was fine . Our friends all showed up, and we all waited and waited some more 35 minutes after arriving we finally got our table by the bar in front of a monstrous television set that was blindingly bright. Immediately the server changed the screen to just a nice pleasant photo however, it was still very bright. She was very nice and brought over a little glass of wine for each of us to have a taster and to apologize for the delay in getting us seated. So bear with me here because this sounds like they are doing their best to make our evening nice. And we were very very happy up to this point other than waiting for our table. She goes on to explain to us that they have been slammed with walkins, and didn’t have enough staff to cover everything. Slammed with walk-ins? The first thing you do when you’re slammed with walk-ins and you have reservations coming in is say to the walk-ins. “Sorry you’re going have to wait until we seat our reserved tables before we can sit you. Common sense? Again she’s brought the wine. They’ve given us the menus we have a table so we should be happy yes. We all order our food and some more drinks and proceed to chat amongst ourselves and enjoy your evening until over an hour later, we realize we still don’t have our food including the appetizers. And we start to ask where is our food, no food. We wait a little longer. Finally all the food starts to come out,ALL of it. The appetizers and mains all together at the exact same time. And the server tells us she didn’t know we wanted or appetizers first. Very strange. So service is not great but probably the food will make up for it because we’ve heard good things. No such thing. We found out that the head chef was not there that night, and they had a lot of young people working in the kitchen. The food was terrible. Had it only been the matter of the service getting us seated and bringing our food very late we would’ve been fine because the food would’ve made up for it but it did not. I ordered the steak and Frites and that piece of meat Was so hammered and dry and no seasoning. Absolutely zero I don’t even think it was sitting next to a salt shaker that’s how unseasoned it was. The french fries were dry over cooked and the size of hashbrowns from a bag. You could not even call these french fries they were so small. And again little pellets. The truffle mayo that they served with it was out of the bottle with a bit of truffle something waved near it. Definitely did not have the truffle taste. And it was about an ounce of mayonnaise. My husband ordered a lamb sandwich which was to have some kind of barbeque sauce on it. They didn’t bring that so he asked where it was they brought it in a little tin dish and it was cold straight out of the bottle barbeque sauce. I could go on. But I’ll just end this by saying who’s running this place? And why do they not have it under control? It’s a huge restaurant. It looked beautiful from the restaurant part. the bar not so crazy for that but oh well. Had I planned to sit in a bar? I would’ve gone to one. Just not impressed at all and I never go back to a place that takes my money and gives me bad service and bad food. This one is a miss if you’re...

If you take anything away from this review, it’s this: check your bill carefully!

We came here with a large group (17 people, 8 adults and 9 kids) for a 6:30 PM reservation. Unfortunately, the experience was less than ideal.

We arrived on time, but the table before us hadn’t left, so we were asked to wait outside. Waiting a bit was fine, but after 30 minutes we were still outside until we followed up and the manager finally stepped in to the other table to leave. We weren’t seated until after 7 PM. To their credit, the manager gave the kids some fries on the house while we waited, and they made sure kids’ meals came out first.

That said, the food itself was hit and miss. The kids’ pasta was undercooked (my child barely touched it), and when I mentioned it to the server, she simply cleared the plate with no apology or offer to replace it. My ribeye steak was decent, but at $75 it felt overpriced for the quality — comparable in cost to high-end steakhouses in downtown Vancouver but nowhere near in taste or value.

The real frustration came with the bill. The restaurant automatically added a 20% gratuity, which we were fine with, but the taxes were completely off. We noticed strange “PLT” charges (said 10% on alcohol but I was charged more than 10%), incorrect GST AND PST calculations, and one family was even charged a liquor tax despite not ordering drinks. When we asked our server, she admitted she didn’t know what PLT even was and had to fetch a manager. After a long wait, the manager explained that their payment system (TouchBistro) has been glitching for the past month. She removed the PLT charge but brushed off the other incorrect tax math, saying it “evened out.” By then, it was late with restless kids, so we paid and left.

The next day, I followed up with another manager, who confirmed their system randomly changes tax amounts once gratuity is added. He also claimed PST was applied to dishes with “imported ingredients” like Alberta beef — something I’ve never seen charged at any other restaurant. The explanation felt questionable at best.

Overall, while some staff made an effort (seating the kids first, helping split the bill), the long wait, underwhelming food, and especially the shady billing issues left us disappointed. At these prices, I would expect a far smoother and more transparent experience. At the very least, knowing that their system was glitchy, they should have double-checked their bills before handing them to guests.

UPDATE (10/3): I appreciate finally getting a response from the restaurant, clarifying that the PST shouldn't have been charged. However, it doesn't change the fact that all of us at the table were charged PST (on top of PLT on the original bill) and the managers insisted that was correct when I followed up days later. Still disappointed. I hope that they actually pay these fraudulent tax charges to...