It’s easy to believe Easterbrook’s has sold over 1600 miles of hotdogs and over a million pounds of ice cream since its opening in the olden days. A Burlington legend, this famous hotdog establishment has been selling its foot-longs since 1930. Tucked in behind the RBG building on Spring Garden Rd, Easterbrook’s is a hidden treasure, quickly identified by the crowd of customers waiting to sample any of the 22 hotdog varieties available, burgers or ice cream. The building, from the 1920s, once shared its space with the Willow Cove Post Office, and was quite the popular meeting place for locals to gather and share the latest gossip.
A visit to Easterbrook’s is a stroll into the past with its black, red and white wall tiles, black and white tiled floor, and red stools. The booths are covered with the initials of hundreds of dreamy-eyed lovers, who had carved hearts into the tables, some decades ago, to declare their undying love for each other. The shooting game and pinball machine inside the front door, are leftovers from the fifties. The ceiling is plastered with business cards and the walls, with autographed photos of the famous people who have enjoyed the ambience here. Signed pictures of Martin Short, Jim Carey and Red Green grace the wall behind the cash register. There have been a couple of motion pictures made on site, such as Red Green’s Duct Tape Forever and the Terry Fox movie.
Ex Maple Leaf, Doug Gilmour, a nearby neighbour, pops in for a bite every once in a while.
If you’re lucky enough to speak with Blake, the fourth generation owner of Easterbrooks, he will tell you about his dad Ray, his Grandma Irene and his Great Grandma Mabel, who originally began the business as a tea room in the late 1920s.
Blake is toying with some new ideas for Easterbrooks but will not sacrifice the preservations of the past. There may just be an ‘invent a new hot dog’ contest, according to Blake, so you may want to start thinking of different ways to jazz up a weenie.
