Burlington's beach shack is worth the drive for smash burgers

Burlington doesn't exactly advertise itself as a beach destination, but one snack shack flying under most Toronto residents' radar is worth the road trip alone.

Dunky's Beach Shack opened summer 2022 in an old concession stand on Burlington Beach. It stayed quiet until a 2025 viral video put it on the social feeds of people across Ontario. Since then, founder Shawn Dunk says business has been booming — even though plenty of Toronto people still have no idea it exists.

Dunk and his family — his wife and his sons, ages 18 and 14 — are Burlington residents who spent a lot of COVID lockdown at the beach. They saw an empty building where a concession stand used to be and thought someone needed to open it up. After some work they won the tender bid and dove in.

Dunk spent most of his life working in kitchens, from sports bars to fine dining. Burgers were unfamiliar ground. But he saw a gap in the Burlington smash burger market and the family was determined to fill it. Word of mouth did the rest — slowly at first, then fast.

Now the shack serves house burgers, smash tacos (a beautiful bastardization of smash burgers and tacos), poutine, and hot dogs. Everything's made in-house except the buns and onion rings — and almost everything is naturally gluten-free.

Dunk volunteers as a hockey coach in the winter and only hires local youth, mostly players he's coached. Running the operation with his family beats his old restaurant grind where he barely saw them. "I worked in this industry my whole life and I used to barely see my family," he says. "This helps combine my worlds into one."

Dunky's Beach Shack is at 1086 Lakeshore Rd. in Burlington. The viral moment brought a surge that's carrying into summer 2026. If you ask the scores of locals who've already adopted it as part of their warm-weather tradition, they'll tell you it's well worth the drive.