What to know
- A video of a squirrel eating a Jamaican patty outside Kensington’s Golden Patty Bakery went viral after comedian Big Norm Alconcel posted it on Instagram.
- The video sparked a flurry of comments, with many dubbing the critter “Patty Squirrel”—Toronto’s answer to New York’s “Pizza Rat.”
- Locals say it’s not the first time they’ve seen squirrels snacking on patties, especially in Scarborough.
- The post highlights Toronto’s love affair with patties, and the city’s famously bold urban wildlife.
Even Toronto’s squirrels apparently know their way around a Jamaican patty.
A squirrel in Kensington Market is going viral after it was caught on camera casually devouring a patty outside one of the neighbourhood’s best-known patty shops.
On Wednesday, comedian Big Norm Alconcel posted a video on Instagram of a squirrel eating a Jamaican patty outside Golden Patty.
Golden Patty has been a longtime fixture inside Kensington Market, making the location part of what turned the otherwise ordinary wildlife encounter into such a distinctly Toronto moment.
In the video, the comedian joked that this has to be “one of the most Toronto things [he’s] seen in [his] life.”
“Only in Toronto,” he emphasized.
Alconcel asked his followers whether they’d ever seen a squirrel eating a Jamaican patty before — and apparently this wasn’t even his first encounter with one.
“I normally see it in Scarborough,” he wrote.
The combination of a Toronto squirrel, Kensington Market and a Jamaican patty didn’t go unnoticed online.
Torontonians quickly ran with the sighting in the comments.
“New York has Pizza Rat, we have Patty Squirrel,” one person wrote, referencing the infamous video of a rat dragging a slice of pizza down the stairs of a New York City subway station.
Another summed up the scene more succinctly: “Yoooo, Toronto af.”
“I’ve never seen a black squirrel… but I’m not surprised the only Black one I’ve ever seen in my life is eating a patty,” another user commented.
“Looks pregnant… must be cravings… lmao,”
Another user joked, “Finders keepers.”
And with that, Toronto may have found its answer to Pizza Rat.
Only ours apparently prefers patties.
