Easterbrook’s Foot long Hot Dogs – An iconic restaurant in Aldershot since 1930

January 2021

Anyone who has lived in the Hamilton-Burlington area of southern Ontario for the past 90 years has heard of Easterbrook’s Foot long Hot Dogs. Located in the Aldershot area of Burlington, near the world famous Royal Botanical Gardens, it’s been a favourite place for locals to gather and eat food since 1930.

Housed in a small, unpretentious, white clapboard building that once also housed the Willow Brook post office, four generations of the Easterbrook family have served over 1600 miles of hotdogs and over 1 million pounds of ice cream, along with buckets of fries, to their hungry customers.

The menu now includes up to twenty-two kinds of hot dogs, plus a sausage on a bun option, making them the second oldest hotdog stand in Canada.

There are also seven kinds of hamburgers on the menu, including a veggie burger, along with pogo sticks and chicken nuggets for kids, with real ice cream milkshakes to wash the food down.

The restaurant was first opened as a tea house by Mable Easterbook in 1926, in the unincorporated village of Aldershot, then part of East Flamborough Township, and four years later, was transformed into the restaurant into the iconic business we know today.

The restaurant itself is reminiscent of a 50s-era diner, red, black & white checkerboard tiles on the walls and floors, a red countertop with stools, three wooden booths, all carved with the initials of hundreds of customers from over the years.

A shooting game and pinball machine, also relics of the 50s, are just inside the front door.

Parts of the walls are covered with hundreds of business cards in the walls (and formerly the ceiling) left by customers, a tradition going back decades, along with assorted newspaper articles.

Autographed photos of some of the famous people who have eaten at Easterbrooks are also on the wall by the cash register, including Hamilton natives Martin Short and Steve Smith (aka Red Green) and former Burlington resident Jim Carey.

Motion pictures and television shows have even been shot at Easterbrooks, including Red Green’s Duct Tape Forever and the Terry Fox movie.

The next time you are in the area, stop in a Easterbrooks for some good food, with a bit of history and nostalgia thrown in. If you can’t find one of the few seats inside, there are also several picnic tables outside for use in the warmer weather.

Sources: http://easterbrooks.ca, https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g154984-d981725-r445111663-Easterbrooks_Hotdog_Stand-Burlington_Ontario.html, http://www.neighbourhoodmagazine.ca/easterbrooks-a-burlington-legend.