If former Toronto Maple Leafs winger John Anderson walked into the old burger joint named after him, he’s not sure if anyone would recognize him.

“I could probably walk in and no one would say anything,” says the retired hockey player. “I remember checking out one of the locations a few years ago and my jersey on the wall had turned yellow.”

It’s been just over 40 years since the first John Anderson Hamburgers restaurant opened at a plaza at the corner of Van Horne and Victoria Park Ave. in North York (it’s creatively named the Victoria-Van Horne Plaza). It’s still there today, and having grown up in that neighbourhood in the early ’90s, I walked past the burger joint countless times wondering what that place was and who John Anderson was.

Decades later, I still wanted to know, and it turns out that the little burger joint in a plaza that seems frozen in the ’80s was the start of a mini burger empire.

It seems odd that a burger joint opened by the one-time Leaf would be at a quiet plaza currently anchored by a Value Village and dotted with mom-and-pop shops. But for Anderson, this was home.

Anderson’s family lived across from the plaza in Pleasant View, a residential neighbourhood with a small public library and a community centre. He remembers being one of the first students to attend the newly built Pleasant View Middle School in 1971. Back then, what is now Highway 404 was still a two-lane road, and he and his friends would walk across it to get to Fairview Mall.

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Every Friday, Anderson’s grandfather would get the halibut from the now-closed Anchor Fish and Chips at the plaza. The young owner, Peter Atsidakos, became friends with the family and remembers Anderson’s grandfather proudly showing him photos of his grandson playing for the junior hockey team, the Toronto Marlboros.

In 1977, a 20-year-old Anderson was drafted by the Maple Leafs. Atsidakos, who was just two years older than Anderson, asked if he would be interested in going into business together. The original idea, says Anderson, was to build a doughnut shop at the corner of the plaza’s parking lot where a gas station was being demolished. But due to delayed cleanups, the land was unsuitable for construction.

Had the plan worked out, there would be a hat trick of doughnut shops owned by Leafs players: in 1964, defenceman Tim Horton opened his first namesake doughnut shop in Hamilton, long before Anderson went into the food business. Horton’s one-time teammate Eddie Shack also had the Eddie Shack doughnuts chain in the mid ‘90s after he retired from hockey (the last location closed in Caledon in 2014, ironically replaced by a Tim Hortons).

Anderson and Atsidakos’ doughnut dream was dashed, but another opportunity opened up when a record shop three doors down from Anchor Fish and Chips closed. It was only 800 square feet, too small to make doughnuts, but big enough to install a grill and deep-fryer for burgers and fries and a few tables. Atsidakos, being one of the many Greek restaurateurs in the city at the time, added souvlaki to the menu.

“Peter was a really good cook and I tried souvlaki for the first time because of him,” says Anderson. “It was marinated and cut by hand, and he made his own tzatziki. The garlic was so strong, it would hit you when you opened the fridge. It was the best. You had to have a great product and he made sure of that.”

Atsidakos handled the everyday business while Anderson brought the star power. On opening day, Anderson brought his teammates to the shop. “It was so busy, we ran out of burgers, so I had to go to Apache Burgers, because I knew the owners, on the west end to get more,” he recalls. “You couldn’t get near the plaza, there were so many people. We ended up getting fined by the plaza and having to pay $350 to clean up the garbage left by people.”

After a year, the original location was sold. Anderson and Atsidakos used that money to open a second location, which was then sold to open another location until they opened five locations and turned the business into a franchise. At its height in 1985, there were nine in the GTA. Anderson’s business acumen sharpened, as he learned about negotiating leases and franchise agreements. He and Atsidakos would get a 2 per cent cut of the stores’ gross.

While he had a growing burger business, Anderson’s career with the Leafs was, well, best summed up by the man himself: “This is how bad of a hockey player I was: people remember me more for the burgers,” Anderson says with a laugh.

Anderson played for the Leafs from 1979 to 1985. In 1986, he got traded to the Quebec Nordiques. With Anderson not in Toronto anymore (as well as struggling to keep up with the chain’s growth) and Atsidakos dealing with personal health issues at the time, they sold the burger business.

Over the years, the stores closed one by one, though one of its locations on Yonge Street in North York is immortalized in a scene in David Cronenberg’s 1986 sci-fi film The Fly before the building was torn down.

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By my last count, there are currently three John Anderson Hamburgers: the original in Pleasant View, one in Mississauga on Dundas St. W. and Glengarry Rd. and a third location in Markham at Warden and 14th Aves., which opened in early 2013. That spot is currently owned by Gus Sountas and his parents, Peter and Matoula, who ran the original Pleasant View location for 25 years from 1979 to 2004.

“My parents have been associated with the name John Anderson for so long, it just made sense to revive the name when we opened,” says Soutpas. “Every week, I have someome that sees the sign from the road and they’ll come in and recognize our family from the first location. I don’t think any other family owned it as long as we did.”

Anderson hasn’t visited any of his old burger spots in more than a decade. When his 12-season career with the NHL ended in the late ’80s, he played in the minors for five seasons, coached NHL teams such as the Atlanta Thrashers and the Phoenix Coyotes, and led the Chicago Wolves, of the American Hockey League, to four league championships as head coach for more than a decade. Until last year, he was the assistant coach of the Minnesota Wild. Now, Anderson is mostly retired, living with his family and taking care of his grandkids, in the suburbs of Chicago where I reached him by phone.

He thinks that had he gone on operating the burger chain, it might have grown to 25 to 50 outlets today, and wishes that he could have kept it going. “Quite honestly, I’d probably like to do it again, but I’m 62 now,” he says. “If my kids were interested maybe I’d do it in Chicago, but they’d probably want to do their own thing.”

I told him that I have yet to eat at the burger place that he helped open, but I would call him back with my tasting notes. “Be sure to try the souvlaki,” he says.

While Anderson has long been out of the restaurant business, his former business partner, whom Anderson hasn’t spoken with since he left Toronto, is still working in restaurants at 64 years old. Atsidakos is the owner of Peter’s On Eglinton in Mississauga, a popular neighbourhood family restaurant that’s been going strong for 26 years because of its big menu and even bigger portions. Here, diners can order a banquet burger and the same souvlaki he cooked up at the original John Anderson spot.

“We were young and full of ideas. While it didn’t last long, we have nothing but good memories,” says Atsidakos, who says he hasn’t stepped foot in a John Anderson Hamburgers in a very long time because of his work schedule. “I thought we could do the same thing as Tim Hortons. That’s how it came to be. I met a few of the Leafs and it was exciting for a young man who was just trying to make ends meet.”

It turns out two of my coworkers grew up eating at the original John Anderson near my house. The Star’s restaurant critic Amy Pataki tells me it’s where she spent her junior high years, eating fries and playing Galaga (this millennial had to turn to Google to find out it’s a video game).

Investigative reporter Brendan Kennedy also lived in the neighbourhood and remembers the odd layout of the burger joint: it had low banquet seating that ran the perimeter of the restaurant but only every other seat had padding on it. The words “penalty box” were painted behind the seating, giving the impression that the restaurant was one giant penalty box.

While the crowds and hockey fans have long gone, the original John Anderson Hamburgers is still at the plaza, feeding locals and the ravenous teens at the adjacent middle school that Anderson attended all those years ago. Currently it’s owned by Yeong Hwan Kim, a soft-spoken Korean man who took over the restaurant from another Korean in 2013. Before that, it was owned by the Sountas’ family who opened the Markham location.

The menu at the original John Anderson Hamburgers is still the same: flame-kissed burgers and souvlaki dinners are still what people order, though Kim has added bubble tea to appease the students at lunchtime. Anderson’s yellowed jersey is framed on the wall along with newspaper cut-outs and faded photos where you can barely make out Anderson’s signature moustache. The odd seat layout my co-worker described is still there, as well as the words “penalty box.”

I ordered a combo of burger, fries and a can of pop ($7.00) as well as chicken souvlaki in a bun ($6.64). The burger was juicy with that nice hint of char flavour. I didn’t expect the souvlaki to be the same that Anderson had since the place had changed so many hands, as I later tell Anderson in a follow-up call (he simply says “mmm-hmm” in agreement and tells me again how wonderfully garlicky Atsidako’s tzatzki was). A few regulars tickle in ordering souvlaki, poutine and burgers just before dinnertime. The glamour is long gone, but it’s a reliable spot for an affordable meal.

Kim shakes his head when I asked if he knew who Anderson was when he took over the business.

“I don’t like sports, but I saw the pictures on the wall and I Googled him. His parents lived across the street,” says Kim, who keeps Sportsnet playing on the TV behind the counter. “I kept everything like the original. People really enjoy the memories.”

Correction - May 14, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Tim Horton opened his first shop three years before John Anderson went into the food business.

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