Some Toronto restaurants build a following through subtlety. The Fancy Induced Burger — TFIB, to regulars — has never had any interest in that approach.
Perched at the southeast corner of Bloor and Bathurst, in the space that once housed FatBurger, TFIB has been impossible to miss since 2024, thanks to an electric purple sign and a syringe as its logo. The gimmick at the centre of it all: burgers served with a syringe full of liquid cheese, meant to be injected directly into the patty tableside. It’s the kind of concept that either fully delights or fully baffles first-time visitors, and there’s rarely much middle ground.
That divide played out recently when U.K.-based musician Jim E. Brown, in Toronto for a July 11 show at the Garrison, stumbled across TFIB’s glowing sign and decided to document the experience on Instagram. His verdict, delivered with a fittingly bewildered tone, landed somewhere between confusion and genuine enthusiasm: “It’s lovely. Proper Canadian stodge.” His description of the cheese-injection process as evocative of “inducing” birth — and food as “quite disgusting, but delicious” — turned into one of the more entertaining tourist takes on Toronto’s food scene in recent memory.
With a second location now open in North York, TFIB has proven that its central gimmick has staying power well beyond a first-impression novelty. For visitors and locals alike, it remains one of the only truly one-of-a-kind burger experiences in the city.
Curious enough to try the syringe yourself? TFIB is open at Bloor and Bathurst, with a second location in North York.