Website: None
Location: 804 Sheppard Avenue East, North York

Burger Hut is another old-school burger joint like Apache or Johnny’s, coasting by for years on nostalgic appeal and fond memories, rather than actual taste.  If you opened a place like this now and served burgers of this caliber, you’d be laughed out of town.  But somehow, dingy old burger joints that have been around since Johnny Carson was the king of late night are given a free pass.  As I mentioned in my Apache review, nostalgia can be a powerful force.

The place has two burgers on their menu: the 1/4 pound hamburger, and the 6 ounce steakburger.  I sort of figured that the steakburger would be the one to get, but just to be sure I asked the man behind the counter, and he confirmed that yes, this is the better of the two burgers.

I ordered, waited for the burger to be ready, and picked my toppings from behind the glass.  As usual, I went with pickles, tomato, and mayo.

It’s a frozen burger; it was obvious enough just cutting into it and looking at the burger’s cross-section.  It’s hard to miss a frozen patty, and of course, if you’ve read my burger commandments then you know that this is a cardinal sin of burgerdom (though that really should go without saying).

The burger was grilled, and though it was somewhat above average for what it was, it had that telltale frozen burger taste and chewy texture.  But it also had a vaguely pleasant beefy flavour, which is somewhat of a rarity for freezer-dwelling hamburgers.  It was still a frozen burger, of course, but I have had worse (I’m assuming the 6 ounce steakburger is the premium frozen burger, and the 1/4 pound hamburger is the standard, cafeteria-style frozen patty).

The fries were also of the frozen variety, but they were fresh from the fryer, and were fairly tasty.  They were completely unsalted, but salt shakers were readily available to rectify that omission.