Betty’s General opened its doors on the Danforth in 2018 as City Betty, a restaurant and cocktail bar, re-invented itself as an epicurean general store during the COVID-19 pandemic — and on March 15, owner Amanda Gatien announced one final pivot:
That Betty’s General is shutting down.
“Endings R so very bitter sweet... we couldn’t go on under the circumstances,” wrote Gatien on the Betty’s General Instagram page Tuesday evening.
“I would like to thank the closing team of the Betty Chapters for their beautiful creativity, gift and above all humour in these trying times,” she wrote. “I appreciate the efforts, edge and love put into every aspect, even under insurmountable duress. I will miss Her, the staff, our peeps... really everything, but I am so happy to have had this amazing restaurant / weird ass shop / sometimes a deli / maybe a nightclub / creative experience with the best souls around.”
Gatien opened City Betty in 2018 in its location at 1352 Danforth Ave. as a bar and restaurant that combined locally sourced foods with a New York and California style. When the pandemic forced bars and restaurants to close down, she made the decision to pivot, completely away from in-person dining and toward a “general store,” serving baked goods and take-away sandwiches and meals along with a curated selection of wine and beer.
In a 2020 interview with Toronto.com, Gatien said the decision to move to retail was an “extremely emotional one,” as in-person dining and the nightclub experience was a family business (her father is former New York City nightclub impresario Peter Gatien).
More recently, Betty’s General was gearing up for a series of events to coincide with spring's reopening. In a February email to Toronto.com, Gatien wrote of plans to merge Betty’s General’s bottle shop with a wine bar, featuring biodynamic wine available by the glass — and a tasting event in co-operation with Nicholas Pearce, a local wine importer located across the street.
Gatien announced the closure along with a photograph of the front door of Betty’s General, with a sign reading simply: “Fin.”