THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF CANADA'S WEIRDEST FAST-FOOD FRANCHISE

How a failed McDonald’s knock-off became a fast-food success for generations of Lebanese-Canadian immigrants in Alberta

- Omar Mouallem

IF YOU DIDN'T GROW UP in Alberta, you've probably never heard of Burger Baron. It's a fast-food chain in only the loosest terms, with a menu that varies wildly from location to location. The branding? There is none in the traditional corporate sense, except for the words "Burger Baron" in each restaurant's name. Some franchisees have pluralized it (Burger Barons), others eponymized it (Kelly's Burger Baron) and others embellished it (Burger Baron Pizza & Steak).

There have been nearly as many logos as locations-some, but not all, are reinterpretations of the original logo, a colourful little knight with crusader crosses on his shield. The menus, meanwhile, can run practically as long as a Chinese restaurant's. Some of the Barons have actually sold Chinese food, or Greek, or Italian, or Indigenous-inspired bannock burgers. The only guarantees are two burger recipes: the flagship Baron and the mushroom burger, their presence assured thanks to their cultish popularity with Albertans. The mushroom burger-a curiously soupy sandwich that looks and tastes like Campbell's cream of mushroom-is especially beloved.

There's one other guarantee: almost every single franchisee hails from a Lebanese family like mine. I was made a baronet as an infant, when my parents, Ahmed and Tamam Mouallem, moved from Slave Lake, Alberta, to the even smaller town of High Prairie, four hours northwest of Edmonton, to open their franchise. They were shrewd Lebanese who had left their country, once the Middle East's capital of commerce, before it was destabilized by ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence. My dad's uncle, living in Slave Lake, sponsored his arrival in Canada in 1971, when Lebanon was teetering on the edge of civil war. By the time my dad returned home to find a bride in his hometown near the Syrian border, "Beirut" had already become synonymous with urban ruin.