South St. Burger Co.

This September marks South St. Burger Co.’s 5 year birthday! With the recent opening of our 13th store at Shops at Don Mills, we have a lot to celebrate. On the outside, our brand has evolved into a tighter design with a more succinct tone. We have embraced sustainability. We are now purchasing energy efficient equipment and local ingredients wherever possible. Half of our locations in Ontario are completely Bullfrog Powered, which represent some great advances since we opened our first location.  But as we continue to find new meaningful ways to channel our brand, on the inside, we have stayed true to our roots. Despite our growth, we still use a fresh patty, from naturally raised cattle, bred without the use of hormones or antibiotics. We continue to have our buns baked by a local baker each morning, then delivered to our stores for the day’s use. We still offer a selection of real cheese to turn your burger into a cheeseburger, and have added blue cheese based on our customer feedback. Our condiment counter remains full, with some new exotic new additions since our initial store, including curry mayo, Chiptotle BBQ sauce and Cajun onions, all of which continue to be complimentary, and allow customers to completely customize their burger.

Over the last five (actually 6) years, we have had the pleasure of creating and growing our South St. Burger Co. concept with our branding agency, JUMP Branding and Design.  JUMP has captured some lovely photographs of the store interior, and pays tribute to our longstanding partnership on their blog. After 5 years of grilling burgers across the Golden Horseshoe (and Calgary!)  we would like to thank all our customers, partners and suppliers for helping us achieve this milestone, and for making South St. Burger Co. the success that it is today.

At long last, after what seems like the longest construction project ever for us, we have finally opened our doors at the Shops at Don Mills, just in time for the last days of summer. Located at the north west corner of Don Mills and Lawrence Avenue in Toronto, this latest addition (lucky #13) occupies 1800 square feet of burger heaven.  Featuring many unique South St. design elements, like the  circular wooden banquettes, sleek counter and industrial lighting, this store has challenged us to finesse our decorating to keep up with the other stylish tenants!  Look for new art treatments, including our humour posters and signature burger line art to add some contemporary, upscale flair to the space!

In other exciting news, Jay Gould, our president and founder, was interviewed recently by BurgerBusiness blogger Scott Hume. Check out the great press we got here.

I owe you an apology. It has been an incredibly busy summer and as a result, I have been negligent in posting (thanks to our fans for reminding me to publish our news. You know who you are!) So now that September is literally around the corner, and people begin to settle back into their regular routines, I promise to try harder and post what’s been happening with us over here. To start with, we are on the heels of opening another store at the Shops at Don Mills property. This will mark our lucky number 13 store (we have 12 in the Golden Horseshoe with one just outside of Calgary in Balzac), and will be our ~fanciest~ South St. Burger Co. yet! We continue to evolve our in store design to keep it interesting and contemporary. I will post some pictures shortly, when I can officially announce that we are open. Likely mid next week; just in time for back to school (and back to work).

In other news… South St. Burger Co. was recently covered in Tonic Toronto, a health, wellness, nutrition and green lifestyle magazine. Published eleven times a year, Tonic covers food, fitness, natural healthcare and the environment and is home-delivered to Globe and Mail subscribers or available for pick-up in over 160 related locations throughout the GTA. The article, entitled Good Food Fast highlights various Toronto dining establishments that serve quality, healthy food - fast.  We are proud to be included in this list and appreciate the opportunity to be interviewed for the publication.

We have also been very busy BBQing up burgers at charity events. One that is especially close to our hearts is the Tour For Kids. Tour For Kids is a 2 -4 day bike ride that took place in Ontario and Alberta this past month. Over 500 riders participated and more than 1.25 million dollars was raised to help send children suffering with cancer to summer camp.

South St. Burger Co. was on hand to feed the exhausted riders (and volunteers!) as they made they way past the finish line of both events. We are tremendously honoured and humbled to lend our services to this event. For more information about this event, and to register for future rides, visit www.tourforkids.com