Square-Boy Drive-In (875 Danforth, at Jones, 416-461-2571) Complete meals for $6 per person, including all taxes and a pop. Average main $4. Open daily 10 am to 1 am. Licensed. Cash only. Access: one step at door, washrooms on same floor. Rating: NN Rating: NN
When I tell Zondanos I’m off to Square-Boy to try its gyros, she says it doesn’t exactly sound like a Greek restaurant to her. Honey, if it’s on the Danforth and it sells cheeseburgers, it’s Greek to me.
A fixture on the avenue since the 60s, this pre-Wendy’s retro drive-in was once home to Toronto’s first square hamburger. Even though the sign out front boasts its burgers are “four bites bigger,” they’re decidedly oval now.
The meat rotating on an electric spit at Square-Boy is truly puzzling, a pre-fab cylinder of what I’m guessing is pork. It’s served stuffed into a doughy 8-inch pita and topped with relatively ripe tomato, okay tzatziki and a bit of onion ($4). The addition of more tzatziki and bland feta (50 cents each) turns previously frozen fries ($1.87) from French to Greek, nothing that several $2.80 domestic beers can’t improve.
