Hot dogs are having a moment in Toronto — these three new restaurants prove it
Hot dog restaurants are popping up all over Toronto, and the people behind them believe it’s time the treats got some time in the limelight.
What could be a more quintessential summertime snack than a hot dog? From Loonie Tuesdays at Blue Jays Games to old reliable street meat vendors ready to refill your tank after a night out, there’s no denying that a perfectly charred tube of mystery meat just hits the spot.
Lately, though, the Toronto hot dog scene has been undergoing a glow-up of sorts, pushing the staples out from the city’s most casual corners and into the spotlight, as hot dog-forward restaurants and concepts have begun to pop up like mushrooms.
Within the past two months, no fewer than three hot dog-centric concepts have planted their roots in Toronto, and, as most good things tend to do, they’re likely to continue multiplying as the hype builds.
For Rafael Bastidas and Valerie Gil, the husband-and-wife team behind Tino’s in The Junction, which opened in May 2024, the desire to open a hot dog restaurant didn’t come from Toronto’s pre-established passion for the dish but from their Venezuelan backgrounds.
“In Venezuela, and other countries, hot dogs are more than just fast food; they’re a street food staple, packed with unique toppings, sauces, and flavour combinations,” Valerie and Rafael tell Dished Toronto.
“We realized most places in Toronto offered a more traditional or minimal take on hot dogs and we saw an opportunity to bring something new and exciting to the scene.”
So, that’s exactly what they did, creating a menu full of dogs topped with various international accoutrements, like the Umami Dog, which comes loaded with pickled onions, white cabbage and a “secret Asian sauce,” or the Completo, with tomato and guacamole.
They’ve even crafted a quintessentially Canadian dog called The Leafs, which is topped with mozzarella, peameal bacon and spicy maple sauce.
High Bell Hospitality Group, the team behind the annually rotating food options inside of Stackt Market’s Blue Moon Brewery, had the same idea, and, earlier this month, launched Mondays Off, their own slider-and-hot dog concept, at the brewery.
“The impetus really wasn’t to start a hot dog business. It was to start a business that was a little bit more, I would say, socially friendly food,” High Bell Hospitality CEO Trevor Lui tells Dished Toronto.
“And when I designed the slider portion of the menu, I said to myself, ‘God, if I’m doing this, why don’t I have hot dogs?’ So then I kind of leaned into the hot dog side, because I love hot dogs more than I love sliders.”
Similarly to Rafael and Valerie, Trevor was not content to put out hum-drum, typical street meat dogs (not that there’s anything wrong with those) and instead looked toward international influences when designing the menu.
The result is a selection of internationally inspired hot dogs, including options like a Banh-Mi-inspired hot dog with pickled carrots and onions, as well as more standardized options like New York- and Chicago-style dogs.
“There’s always been a few people that just want a plain old hot dog. And a lot of people have never had an authentic New York-style hot dog and an authentic Chicago-style hot dog, which, by the way, don’t have ketchup, and being Canadian, people are like, ‘What do you mean there’s no ketchup?’ But surprisingly enough, there are people who are willing to test it without ketchup, and they’ve been really liking it,” Trevor says.
It’s a similar philosophy to that which has kept Fancy Franks, which, prior to the spring of 2025, was the primary business keeping Toronto’s hot dog culture alive, in business for the past 13 years.
Over in The Beaches, there’s also the recently opened Beam’s, which specializes in Montreal-style “steamies,” with the traditional toppings that Toronto audiences might be more familiar with.
In all cases, the response has been one of overwhelming enthusiasm, irrefutable evidence of the simple fact that Toronto has been hungry for a hot dog era.
“I actually don’t think that the hot dog ever really had its rightful place in Toronto culinary culture,” Trevor Lui tells Dished Toronto.
“I just think that Toronto really hasn’t embraced a hot dog as a foundational or mainstream food. It’s always been like carnival food or barbecue food. But why couldn’t we emphasize the coolness of eating a hot dog with cool toppings on it, like we would do a burger?”
Rafael and Valerie echo the sentiment, telling Dished Toronto that they believe the recent hype can be attributed to Toronto diners discovering that the possibilities for a hot dog and bun are endless.
“I think people are rediscovering the hot dog, not as something basic, but as a blank canvas for creativity. It’s nostalgic and fun, but there’s so much room to innovate with toppings, textures, and global influences,” they tell Dished Toronto.
“Plus, it’s approachable,” they add. “You don’t need to know a lot about food trends to enjoy a great hot dog. You just have to take a bite.”
Hot dogs aren’t a new thing by any means. The dogs we know and love in North America today were developed in the mid-19th century, but, as Trevor so aptly points out, they’ve always occupied a lesser rung of the culinary scene, relegated to Canada Day barbecues and baseball games.
The reality, though, is that hot dogs, not unlike hamburgers, which have long been seen as worthy of high-brow culinary praise, are deserving of similar attention; and their road to the top might just be starting right here in Toronto.
We could wax poetic about the rise of hot dogs in Toronto all day, but we think Trevor explains the motivation behind the boom best.
“Deep down inside, to be honest, as healthy as we all are, everyone loves a hot dog,” he says.
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