Smash hit West K eatery’s novel take on burgers makes a big impact By: David Sanderson Posted: 10:35 AM CDT Friday, Nov. 1, 2024

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This article was published 01/11/2024 (335 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Smashing success? It’s certainly starting to look that way.

Vellan Vadivelu had a decision to make. Ahead of opening Woodbine Burgers at 2494 Main St. earlier this year, the 31-year-old chef and entrepreneur was debating what direction he should take, burger-wise.

To his way of thinking, he could choose the traditional route by concentrating on thick, seasoned patties, which would put him in direct competition with nearby burger joints such as Super Boy’s Family Restaurant and the Golden Boy Bistro.

Or he could separate himself from the pack somewhat, by focusing exclusively on smash burgers, a method that involves compressing, or smashing, what appears to be an oversized meatball onto a piping hot grill, resulting in a thin patty that is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

In the end, he went with the flatter, err, latter option, and although smash burgers aren’t entirely new to Winnipeggers — Confusion Corner Drinks + Food’s Confusion Burger boasts two four-ounce smash patties — some customers still had a bemused look on their face as they witnessed him or one of his employees seemingly crush their meal to smithereens, using a weighted culinary tool commonly referred to as a burger stamp.

There was a certain amount of education involved, but it wasn’t too long before people were coming back three or four times a week, for their “smash-burger fix,” Vadivelu says with a chuckle, standing next to a black-and-white sign near his front door reading “life’s too short to not eat smash burgers.”

Vadivelu guesses he was 11 or 12 years old when he started lending a hand in the kitchen of his childhood home in St. Boniface, to make breakfast and/or lunch for his three younger siblings.

His father and mother, who met in Winnipeg after respectively moving here from Mauritius and India, always encouraged him to be creative when it came to spices, whether he was preparing a simple omelette or something more elaborate, he recalls.

From 2000 to 2013, Vadivelu’s dad was an operations manager at the Clarion Hotel, and it was there where he landed a weekend position as a prep cook at age 15, following a brief stint as a coat-check clerk.

After graduating from Collège Louis-Riel — he is fully bilingual — he enrolled at Red River College Polytechnic to study mechanical engineering.

The course wasn’t a great fit, as it turned out, so he ultimately left school to cook five days a week at Joey Polo Park, where he was already employed on a part-time basis.

“That’s kind of when I made up my mind that I was better suited to the hospitality industry, and, as the years went by, more and more doors opened up for me,” Vadivelu says, listing Joey Kenaston, Carbone Coal-Fired Pizza and Browns Socialhouse, where he was named head chef, as other restaurants he became involved with.

In 2022 Vadivelu helped form V & D Restaurant Group, a consulting firm that assisted fledgling restaurant owners with getting off the ground, while also providing upscale catering for public and private events.

Owing to his connections, the owners of ice cream parlour 9 Below reached out to him in March, to ask if he knew anybody who might be interested in taking over vacant premises directly adjacent to their own, the one-time home of Charlie Burgers. His response: yeah, him.

“I’d been there once, probably three years before, and I remembered enjoying the vibe,” he says of the former pickup and takeout locale.

“I went down to have a look around and literally within four weeks, we’d repainted and rebranded the space, thrown together a menu, hired staff and got the necessary permits.”

(The most common query when he picked up the phone his first month there was whether Woodbine Burgers was associated with the 146-year-old Woodbine Hotel, just north of Portage and Main. No, he told callers; rather, his tag is a nod to neighbouring Woodbine Avenue, visible from an outdoor patio populated with 10 wooden picnic tables.)

Back to smash burgers; after some experimentation at home, Vadivelu settled on what’s become known as an Oklahoma-style patty, a sort heavily reliant on caramelized onions that was reportedly invented during the Great Depression at the historic Hamburger Inn in Ardmore, Okla., 140 kilometres east of Dallas.

And while sales from May to August were encouraging, the cash register really started to ring during the first week of September, when Vadivelu participated in both the Between the Buns and Le Burger Week promotions.

His entry, the Smashzilla, which consisted of two Wagyu smash patties topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, chipotle aioli, blueberry mayo, fried onion rings and butter pickles presented on a toasted brioche bun, proved a tremendous hit, and was ranked seventh in a national poll conducted by Le Burger Week organizers.

“We sold something crazy like 2,800 (Smashzillas), which worked out to about 400 per day,” he says, mentioning his restaurant’s “classic bigboy” burger pays homage to Tache Avenue mainstay Mrs. Mike’s, a go-to of his when he was growing up.

“It was definitely a heavy-execution burger to throw together — the blueberry mayo in particular takes a long time to prep — but demand was such that we brought it back for our six-month anniversary in October, and we’ll keep it on the menu through the holidays, at least.”

If burgers aren’t your jam, Woodbine’s menu also lists hot dogs, poutine and chicken wraps. For non-carnivores, there is a plant-based option done with a chickpea-and-beet patty Vadivelu developed two years ago for the retail market, under the banner Chicks ’n Beets.

Additionally, if you have a sweet tooth, you might be tempted by an intriguing-sounding selection centred around the world’s best-selling cookie.

“The ice cream shop doesn’t stay open through the winter, so for dessert we recently came up with deep-fried Oreos, which are dipped in batter and arrive with a side of chocolate sauce,” he says.

It’s still early in the game but Vadivelu, who together with his fiancée welcomed their second child four weeks after his Apr. 17 grand opening, is already hearing from parties who ask when he plans to add a second location, closer to their end of the city.

It’s not like he hasn’t tossed the idea around, he allows, but for the time being, his primary concerns are the installation of a new heating system — the space has never remained open through the winter months before — and hopefully introducing some interior seating, now that it’s too chilly to dine on the patio.

“I don’t want to grow so quickly that we lose aspects of customer service, especially since the community has been treating us so great,” he continues, mentioning that as a Winnipeg Sea Bears season-ticket holder, he was thrilled this summer when members of the professional men’s basketball team popped by for a bite.

“On the other hand, I’m a firm believer in fate, and if something’s meant to be, it will happen.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca