Burger Drops : One of the Best Burgers in Toronto

The funny thing about Burger Drops is that it was never supposed to be a restaurant. Greg Bourolias was working 65 hours a week as executive sous chef at Aloette and just wanted a reason to gather his industry friends on a random Sunday. He started experimenting with the idea of a $1 burger, which proved economically impossible, and pivoted to throwing parties instead. Six years later, those parties have turned into one of Liberty Village’s most reliable smash burger destinations.

The Long Way to a Storefront

Greg comes from 20 years in the industry, but his real chef training started decades earlier in the family’s Greek-American diners, run by his uncles and his dad. That diner DNA is why Burger Drops feels so unmistakably American at its core. He was the first cook hired at Aloette’s Queen and Spadina location, and was deep into restaurant life when he started running a side project just for the love of hospitality.

The first event was 15 people in a friend’s home. The next was Burgers and Beers 1.0 in summer 2018: $5 beers, $15 all-you-can-eat burgers, all cooked out of his mom’s kitchen in Markham. The burger was a riff on the Oklahoma fried onion style, with thinly sliced caramelized onions smashed straight into the patty, plus house-made mayo and pickles. He DM’d people on Facebook and sent invites. 150 people showed up.

By the last event of 2019, the crowd was 700 to 800 people, almost all of them strangers. There was live art, free ice cream, music, dancing. There was also George Motz, the New York burger historian and now owner of Hamburger America, who flew up from NYC to host an event with Greg. That was the moment Greg started thinking about Burger Drops as a real business. He still didn’t want a restaurant.

The Pivot That Earned the Name

Then COVID hit. Greg lost $200,000 in catering deals in five days. He sat on his girlfriend’s couch (now his wife’s) for a month before figuring out his next move. The breakthrough came through Tock 2 Go, the takeout reservation platform built by the team behind Alinea in Chicago. Burger Drops was one of the first restaurants in Toronto to use it.

The model was simple: announce a location, sell pre-orders for pickup, show up in a parking lot under a tent, and serve. Each drop sold out in minutes. They were doing 2,000 burgers an event. Different parts of the city, different weeks, a location pin and a burger. That’s where the name comes from. Burger Drops, like a sneaker drop.

A landlord followed those pop-ups for months and kept telling Greg about a space in Liberty Village. Greg, born and raised in Toronto, had never set foot in the neighbourhood. When he finally walked into the space, he knew within two steps it was the one. He opened with $500 left in his account and a garbage can in the back of the restaurant for the nerves. Two hundred people lined up on opening day. The first weekend did $40,000.

The Burger That Earned the Hype

The patties at Burger Drops are made from a signature blend of chuck and other premium cuts of AAA Canadian beef, ground fresh in house every day. They’re hand-formed into balls, then smashed onto a screaming-hot griddle, the move that gives a smash burger its lacy, caramelized crust and locked-in juice.

The classic cheeseburger is the dish to order if you’re new. American cheese, hand-cut pickles brined in house, griddled onions, and the signature Drop Sauce (tangy with a subtle heat) all stacked on a Martin’s Potato Roll. It’s the kind of burger that hits every reference point of a great American smash burger and quietly outperforms most of them.

The fries are no afterthought. Hand-cut shoestrings, the right balance of crisp and tender, served with a jalapeño-infused cheese sauce and a pickled jalapeño relish that pulls everything together. The chili cheese fries pile on house-made chili and fresh minced onion. Either one is a meal in itself.

A Restaurant Built on Industry Cred

The thing that’s always set Burger Drops apart is who showed up. Long before the storefront, the people coming to those pop-up events were chefs, bartenders, servers, and hosts from the best kitchens in Toronto. When the industry shows up to your event, the city follows. Liberty Village ended up being a smart bet for that exact reason. The neighbourhood is full of heritage buildings but commercially still finding its identity, and at the time there was nowhere good to eat near the BMO Field and Molson Amphitheatre crowds. Burger Drops walked in and gave the area something it didn’t know it was missing.

Six and a half years later, the storefront is still smashing, the trailer is in operation, and Greg is looking at more locations across Canada.

What Greg Is Most Proud Of

When asked what he’s proudest of, Greg doesn’t talk about the burger or the lineups or the awards. He talks about his team. “Anyone can make delicious food,” he says, “but not everyone can inspire other people to excel past you as a leader.” It’s a real answer from someone who built his entire pop-up era on the idea of hospitality, and it tracks with everything he’s done since.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Scott Usheroff (Craving Curator)

Updated on May 27, 2026

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