St. Boniface burger staple back after closing down last year
A beloved burger stand in St. Boniface is back in business.
Mrs. Mikes shut down last year after a half-century of serving the community. Now its doors have reopened and Winnipeggers were lined up to get their fill, even as snow fell on them.
"It's an institution. So glad to see it back," said patron Doug Little.
"They're just like part of the family," said Paulette Desrochers while waiting for her food.
The Mikos family has been running the restaurant since 1969, but last year after 54 years flipping burgers, then-owner Steve Mikos decided to hang up the apron and retire – much to the dismay of Mrs. Mikes regulars.
"(I would) come here with my mom. Even got an ice cream cone back in the 60s, late 60s," said Ken Burns. "Just those magic moments."
Brian Tascona said the burger joint has been a staple for him while living in the neighbourhood.
"Fact is that I've been coming here for over 50 years," said Tascona.
Despite closing the doors, the family was not done with the restaurant just yet.
"Cathy (Mikos) wasn't ready to go yet," said Christina Nakoulas, the niece of owner Cathy Mikos.
"She missed all her customers, we couldn't stay away. So we said, 'We need to come back and keep those burgers going for the community and for all of Winnipeg.'"
Even with Cathy Mikos taking over the restaurant, the time-tested menu is staying the same.
"Same formula. Same menu. Same tastes. Same everything," said Nakoulas.
With lineups of people braving the snow to get their hands on a king burger and chili fries, it's safe to say folks are happy to have them back.
"It's well worth the wait. It's well worth it," said Little.
"It's fantastic. Glad to have them back. They're part of the neighbourhood for decades," said Burns.
"It has a lot of history. And I think it's very, very important to have individual restaurants, apart from regular chains, making burgers. So it's wonderful that this is happening," said Tascona.
The feeling behind the grill is mutual.
"We're just happy to be back in the community and give (Winnipeggers) burgers that they've been eating for 50 years," said Nakoulas.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Triple murder or manslaughter? Sudbury jury deliberating fate of man responsible for fatal firebombing
After a lengthy series of instructions from Justice Dan Cornell, a Sudbury jury is deliberating whether to find a suspect guilty of three counts of manslaughter or three counts of murder.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’