It’s just a name! Simple as that.

We've had our opportunities to do so, but we're quite set on being seasonal only. Running a restaurant is hard! It’s extremely time consuming and stressful, and we’re awed by all the people that choose to do this full time. We prefer having a break and coming back to another season all fresh and ready to go. Plus, we do have another full time business that occupies the rest of our time. Need any web hosting or design?

Let’s preface this with a couple of important points.

1. We have very limited space. We probably don’t have the room to put that soft serve machine/fryer/extra fridge/etc that you think we should have in there.
2. We try to have environmentally friendly foods and packaging wherever possible

We don’t have:

• Coke/Pepsi/Sprite/Any number of other sodas and pops. Limited space!
• French fries: No fryers! And no, we don’t plan on getting one.
• Ice cream cones: Sorry. We only have enough freezer space to hold the ice cream that we need to make floats. (Though we do have house made vegan ice cream cups as of 2024!)
  
• Bottled water: Bottled water is a sham, just drink tap. We’ll fill up any bottle or cup that you bring to us, no charge.
• Tacos! Sorry about this, folks. We wanted to go a different route, so meatless burgers have taken over from tacos as of 2021.

Please check with us before placing your order and we can tell you if and when we have used any given allergen. Here's some general rules of thumb:

Gluten: OUR KITCHEN IS NO LONGER GLUTEN FREE AS OF 2021. We will have gluten free buns available for the smashburgers, and they will be toasted on their own exclusive griddle. Most of the sides that we offer are gluten free.

Seeds & Nuts: Sesame seeds are used pretty frequently in our kitchen, as well as other nuts. Please just ask us details on whatever you'd like to eat.

Dairy & Eggs: We regularly use dairy and occasionally eggs at the canteen. For those with less severe allergies, these items can be omitted from most products we sell. Many of our products are already dairy free, and we usually have oat milk on hand for coffee and tea.

Vegan/Vegetarian: Everything (as of 2021) is vegetarian! Most items that are already vegetarian can be made vegan. You can find more information about Impossible Foods here, which we use for the burger patties.

We do what we can to separate vegan items from any dairy, but it is a very small kitchen so there is always a chance of cross contamination.

We try to be as environmentally friendly as we can be. It's been a core principle of Lemon Dogs since it’s’ very beginning in 2013 when we started with bio-plastic cups and paper straws.

Our goal is to make all of our packaging environmentally friendly, but not everything is available in such a form. Here's a breakdown:

Compost

• Paper plates and 'boats'
• Paper take-out containers
• Small paper portion cups from queso/sauces
• Paper bowls
• Paper hot cups
• Paper straws

Recycling

• Hot cup plastic lids
• Plastic portion cups used occasionally for queso and other sauces, but only when mostly clean
• Alcohol and soda cans

Garbage / Plastics

• Plastic freezie and ice pop wrappers
• Bio-plastic* bowl lids (marked 'eco')
• Bio-plastic* cold cups and lids
• Dirty plastic portion cups

Ingredients

We use a lot of local ingredients whenever possible, sourced through local vendors and farmers’ markets. In addition to that, we’ve gone meatless for 2021! All of our burgers will be made with Impossible Food ground meat alternative. It’s delicious and you won’t even know the difference!

* Bio Plastics are biodegradable, but they must be tossed in the garbage. They are typically made of corn or legume by-products and most are certified to decompose at least 80% of their structure within 1 year in optimal aerobic composting facilities.

Halifax's waste management facilities only handle short-term composting. They've told us that they aim to turn their compost into usable garden materials in under 6 months. Since these plastics take longer than that to degrade and the city does not have facilities to force them to biodegrade faster, they must be tossed in the garbage.

In the garbage, bio plastics will still biodegrade, but will likely take longer since the conditions will be less-optimal than with other materials typically found in composts.

Sometimes! A beautiful sunny weekend often means a lot of people at the park. Since our products are hand-made and cooked to order, when it gets busy, the wait gets longer.

For window orders:

• On your average weekday drinks are ready within 5 minutes and food in about 10.
• On a busy weekend, drinks can take 10-15 minutes and food 15-25 minutes.

Simply order online and come to pick up your order when it's ready! No need to wait around.

We do our best to monitor our food preparation times in order to keep them within our personal 20 minute goal, and in the event there is a wait we hope that, as many of our customers have indicated for themselves, you'll find that the food is worth it.

Her name is Kit. She's a border collie (perhaps mix). She spent the first couple years of her life on a farm in Mexico herding cows and living outside year-round.

Fortunately for us, Kit didn't have a very good herding instinct, and so the farmer put her up for adoption. We brought her home to Dartmouth in Feb 2023.

Some notes about Kit:

1. Temperatures: She's pretty used to the heat, after all it gets very hot in Mexico. She also loves snow and cold temperatures!
2. Petting: Please do not approach Kit. She doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, but she does love doing tricks! If we’re not busy, come ask at the counter and we can get her to show off a bit.
3. Other Dogs: She's far better with dogs than people, but we still ask that you only bring your dog near with permission from canteen staff.
4. Food: Please do not feed kit. She has a sensitive stomach and needs to be on a particular diet to keep from getting sick.

We have put up a barrier between her and the rest of our patio to prevent unapproved access.

Note: Charlie, the fluffy white Samoyed/Husky mix, passed away in the fall of 2022.

We wanted to go meatless, and the best way to accomplish this was a total menu revamp.

If you've got a hankering for tacos, we recommend:

• Tako Loko (Halifax)
• Verano (Halifax)
• El Chino (Halifax)
• Beverley Taco Service (Halifax)
• El Este Taqueria (Dartmouth)
• Evan's Seafood (Dartmouth / Fish Tacos)
• Tempo (Halifax / Fish Tacos)