We were very confused on a Monday afternoon as we stood outside the Milanos at 2241 St. Laurent Blvd.. We had come looking for Skinny George’s Smash Burgers, but all we could see was the familiar red and green of a Milanos.

It turns out there’s a perfectly good explanation. The owner bought the Milanos and started Skinny George’s at the same counter. There are separate menus for the two businesses, something the server quickly explained when she saw the three of us standing there trying to figure it out. We took a booth by the window, surrounded by diner-style seating, delivery drivers and plenty of tables in the middle of the restaurant. Across the street is a gas station. There’s nothing particularly trendy about the setting, which is part of the charm.

On this visit I was joined by my significant other Danielle, co-founder of Eat the Strip, and our friend Sergio, who was there as the blog was christened. We were all hungry and had come with a very specific craving: smash burgers.

For anyone who has somehow avoided the smash burger craze, the concept is pretty simple. Instead of a thick, rounded patty, the beef is pressed onto a hot cooking surface, creating a thin burger with deeply browned, crispy edges. Skinny George’s does exactly that, and does it very well.

We ordered the Skinny George Burger, the Spicy George Burger and the Spicy Mushroom Melt, all as doubles. They run roughly $13 to $15, depending on the burger, which feels pretty reasonable for what you get. There are also kids’, double and triple options, although none of us was willing to admit we needed the kids’ version.

“The perfect level of smash,” Danielle said.

The burgers arrive on soft, buttery buns, with fresh beef and plenty of char around the edges. The pickles on the classic burger are the perfect thickness, while the pickled jalapeños on the spicy version add a welcome hit of heat without overwhelming everything else. The classic Skinny George was probably my favourite, precisely because it lets the beef, onions, cheese and pickles do the talking.

Then there was the Spicy Mushroom Melt, loaded with bacon and mushrooms. “That char is phenomenal,” Sergio said, and it was hard to disagree. We were glad we had gone for doubles because we were seriously hungry, but the patties themselves are substantial in flavour even though they are thin.

The skinny fries were good too: thin, crisp and exactly what you want alongside a burger.

What makes Skinny George’s particularly interesting, though, is that the burgers came about almost by accident.

I spoke with Elie, who runs the business with his brother George, after whom Skinny George’s is named, and George’s son, Elie Jr. The family had been cooking for years, but the smash burger idea came through Elie’s nephew, who was working in Florida for six months. The compound where he worked had a smash burger restaurant, and he became a regular. Eventually, the owner discovered that the family was from Ottawa and wanted to learn how poutine was made.

So the Ottawa family shared their poutine sauce recipe. In return, they received an excellent smash burger recipe.

The burger recipe remains a secret. Elie would only reveal that the secret isn’t in the sauce.

He took one bite and wanted it on the menu immediately.

The family decided to change things up without taking on the overhead of hiring five new employees. They started serving the burgers in the third week of August last year, and within about a week people from social media were showing up to try them. It quickly took off.

Elie says they use high-end beef and that you can tell the difference. The volume is now high enough that weekends are mostly about keeping up with orders rather than chatting with customers.

There’s another item that has become something of a draw: the Philly cheesesteak. We had heard plenty about it before arriving, and we were told that on certain days it sells out quickly enough that people line up and call ahead. The family got the idea after a trip to Philadelphia about six months into the burger operation, and it has become another fast-moving menu item.

After about a year and a half, Skinny George’s is already preparing for its next chapter. The family plans to open a second location in Orléans, hopefully before Christmas, and there is talk of eventually franchising.

That’s quite a journey for a burger counter tucked inside a Milanos.

And that’s what I like about Skinny George’s. It really is a hidden gem, a smash burger place masquerading as a neighbourhood pizza joint. I generally have my reservations about places that suddenly become social media sensations, but the hype here is deserved. This is a seriously good burger, made with fresh ingredients, at a very decent price.

And perhaps the best part of the whole story is that Ottawa got it because someone in Florida wanted to learn how to make poutine.

That’s a trade I can get behind.