In just four years, Ontario-based Oklahoma Burgers has grown from a grassroots effort with a food hall stall, a KitchenAid mixer and a dream, to an internet-famous chain with four locations in Toronto and the GTA, and founder Sameer Vahidy doesn’t plan to slow down any time soon.

You’d be hard-pressed (pun not intended) to find someone in Toronto these days who hasn’t already fallen in love with the caramelized delights of Mississauga-founded chain, Oklahoma Burgers, or, at the very least, whose social media feeds haven’t been inundated with images of the sizeable, seared burgers.

Boasting more than 35K followers on Instagram and nearly 16K on TikTok, not to mention its enthusiastic fan base, the chain is a certified phenomenon, but Vahidy tells blogTO that a lot of the brand’s inception came down to chance.

@blogto Oklahoma Burgers makes smash burgers with LOTS of ONIONS 🧅 🍔 #toronto #ontario #canada #torontofood #tiktokfood #mississauga #halalfood #burgers #smashburgers #oklahoma ♬ Western style bgm cowboy western etc.(1263171) – Shinnosuke Shibata

Before starting the chain, Vahidy had accrued over 20 years in the hospitality industry, working his way through “every position imaginable,” from valet to Regional Vice President, in England, Scotland, the United States and Canada.

He knew that the corporate world wasn’t his endgame, though, and, in 2017, he walked away from the career he had spent two decades building.

Originally, the idea was for Vahidy to go out on his own and open a Texas-style BBQ concept, so he embarked on a journey that brought him through Austin, Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, sampling the best of the best in the BBQ business.

“Tough trip, but someone had to do it,” he jokes.

Nearing the end, though, BBQ fatigue had well and truly set in, and Vahidy, in an effort to eat something, anything, else, stumbled upon the Oklahoma-style burger at a hole-in-the-wall diner in Oklahoma City.

“It was as simple as it gets — onions, beef, and a bun — but executed perfectly. That moment stuck with me more than all the brisket I had that week,” he says.

A few years later, Vahidy and his wife spent three months in Tokyo while she did her PhD research. Vahidy tells blogTO that during that time, his role was that of a “professional eater,” and he was struck by the simplicity and straightforwardness of Japanese izakayas.

“No distractions, just mastery,” he says. “That philosophy completely changed how I thought about food concepts.”

Fast forward to 2022, and he finally had the chance to open a test concept at Mississauga’s Kingsbridge Food Hall, and Oklahoma Burgers was born.

The no-frills concept merges Vahidy’s inspirations from the American South and from Japan. There are only two burgers on the menu, made in the Oklahoma style, where griddled onions are smashed directly into the patty. The space is simple. It’s all about doing one thing really, really well.

It’s safe to say that Vahidy’s instincts paid off. Grinding meat using a KitchenAid mixer, the concept grew at an exceptional rate. Vahidy went from processing around 3 lb. of meat per day to 60 within the concept’s first two weeks. By the second month, the team was cranking out around 300 lbs. of meat.

“People were driving in from all over Ontario just to try the burgers, which was both exciting and a little surreal,” Vahidy says. 

“At the beginning, I didn’t know if it would stick — in this industry, hype can come and go quickly. But the demand kept growing, and that’s when I knew we had something real.”

In late 2023, Vahidy opened the first permanent location of Oklahoma Burgers at 214 King St. W. in Toronto, and it immediately took off. For Vahidy, the success of the Toronto flagship was final confirmation that Oklahoma Burgers was something special after all.

The sole owner and operator of Oklahoma Burgers, Vahidy jokes that his position “means I get all the credit and all the stress,” and he’s not wrong, but he does concede that the chain’s expansion, which has grown to four locations in the GTA, has been “surprisingly smooth.”

Most recently, the chain opened near the intersection of Queen and Spadina, taking over the space that formerly housed Ca Phe Rang, and Vahidy is already pondering new locations where Oklahoma Burgers can pop up.

“The immediate plan is to continue expanding within the downtown core — likely another two to three locations — before seriously looking at the suburbs,” he says.

People have also been expressing interest in franchising the concept elsewhere in Canada and internationally, but, for now, Vahidy’s goal is to focus on keeping the chain’s immediate presence consistent before he puts it into any other hands.

“For now, the focus is simple: keep building, keep refining, and keep making really good burgers,” he says.

If the past four years of Oklahoma Burgers is any indication, he’s on the right track.