In a city full of people who love a good burger and no shortage of places to find the ubiquitous meals, Burger's Priest reigns supreme. Since opening its first shop at Queen and Coxwell in June 2010, the classic American-style burger joint rapidly gained a devout following. A second Burger’s Priest opened at Yonge and Lawrence in January 2012, and now a third location is slated to make its debut at Queen and Spadina next month. Something about its juicy beef, soft buns, and simple toppings continues to convert people to the power of the old fashioned burger.
 

We caught up with Burger’s Priest founder Shant Mardirosian to talk about what makes his burgers so delicious, the deal with the special menu that was, until recently, only found online, and the secret to expanding the Burger's Priest empire despite ample competition.  
 

You actually were going to be a priest, what happened there?
 

Oh, nothing. I graduated seminary school and in my last year talking to my profs, talking with my friends at school, we just kind of realized that wasn't the track for me. I didn't feel it. I just kind of confirmed that last year to go into business and just try to be a good Christian.
 

So what brought you into the burger business? 
 

I love hamburgers. I'm from California so I grew up on the California hamburger, that classic burger. When I moved here I was a waiter at Ruth's CHRIS Steakhouse with my buddy, and one day we said ‘where can we get a good burger?’ This was back in '06, and there were no burger shops around. The only place you could get a really good burger was in New York, so we piled into a car and drove to New York. Once I had it I knew there was something distinctly different here in the same way that pizza is different from Roma and Naples. There is something territorially different in a burger between New York and Toronto.
 

We've already got so many burger joints here in Toronto, how do you compete against them all?
 

I don't. I don't consider myself in competition with anybody. I wake up every morning and do my thing. That's all I do.

You developed a following pretty quickly. Where you at all surprised at how big Burger's Priest became?
 

I was surprised at the speed of it. I was surprised at the volume of it. I knew that Toronto is definitely a food city and that people really like good food, but yeah, I am a little bit surprised at how quickly it happened.
 

Where do you get your ingredients from?
 

Where ever we can get the best. Occasionally some of the produce is local. The meat may or may not be local. We don't talk about where that's from. If there are no good tomatoes we'll get them from California. We'll do what we have to do to get the best stuff.
 

The patties are a little different from what some other places might have. How do you go about making them?
 

We just grind them, make them into balls, and they're formed into patties when they hit the grill. They're smashed down. There's no filler at all.
 

What do you find that people like about your burgers so much? Why do they keep coming back?
 

I would say that there is something about a hamburger, especially in the style that I do it, that it can serve a couple purposes. It could be a lunch, or a dinner, just a normal meal. But it can also be a snack. So you can come in, eat one of my burgers, or go about your day and eat it as a snack. This is not a brand new way of making burgers. This is an old way of making burgers brought back. A lot of my customers, especially older generations, they say this is what I remember them to be and then it suddenly just disappeared. So the nostalgia of it brings people back.
 

Do you find making burgers this way is more affordable since there are fewer ingredients involved?
 

I've never thought of it as being more affordable. I've thought about it as being historical. Historically, a hamburger, this is what it is. This is how it started. Maybe not the cooking apparatus itself, but in terms of what was in it ingredient wise: it’s just beef. The whole egg and breadcrumb thing, Lipton onion soup, that all came way, way, later.

What are your most popular burgers?
 

Probably the Vatican City (a double cheeseburger in a grilled cheese bun), I would say that’s our most popular. And the Tower of Babel (two beef patties and a veggie patty in a grilled cheese bun). Those are big ones.
 

Those are on the Secret Menu, too. Do you get a lot of people ordering off that?
 

The majority of our business is from the Secret Menu. We’ve become a little more lenient towards that, so we now have some of the secret menu stuff on the board here.
 

You're opening a new store at Queen and Spadina. I understand it was delayed. What's going on with that?
 

There were permit issues. We kept plugging through but we’re almost there. Mid-May is the target now. It'll be much like [the original] location but it will have some seating, some tables.
 

I notice you have some passages of scripture on the walls here. Why did you choose those passages?
 

I chose that passage because specifically in that scenario in Daniel you have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego dealing with a tyrannical ruler, and this ruler is making them do something they don’t want to do. In that time it was like they had to do what he wanted them to do, or die. But they don't. They stand up for what they believe in. I put that passage up there because it’s a reminder to me that in this industry you're constantly being pushed to go one way to either compromise on an ingredient or how much we pay people, all those kind of things, but at the end of the day you stick to your guns and sometimes it works out.
 

Will the new restaurant have those same passages?
 

No, it will have different ones.
 

Can you share with me with ones that will be?  
 

Not yet, I'm still working on it. I'm leaning towards the David and Goliath narrative for a particular reason, but I'm not there yet.

After this third store opens, do you think you'll open a fourth, or maybe move beyond Toronto?
 

Yeah. I plan to just keep going. I’d love to move beyond Toronto. I'd love to move outside Canada. I'd love to move outside North America. My motto is "one good store at a time."