1250 Weston  (c.1930s)
Fred’s lunch | Adawi Perfume & Clothing



Hilda Matthews
Thank you for the memories I remember them well I was one of the waitress that worked there and I lived with them during the summer Fred and Hazel were good people they also had property up on the 400 highway where I also worked for them they sold the land to which Canadas Wonderland is now on very happy memories.
Mike Harris
They also sold comic books. Some of them were horror ones that they wouldn't sell to kids. Comics with a pic of a 16-ton truncated pyramid of concrete on the sidewalk with two hands and two feet sticking out from under it, after falling from a building. Not sure who would find that comical, but Fred was clearly just selling what a "job-racker" was putting out. I actually remember Fred, even though my family moved me away in grade 4.

Al Kettles
Fred's lunch was our hang out there especially in the winter. There would be 4-5 of us in a booth & we would order a plate of fries wirh gravey and 4-5 forks... in there for hours. Best greasy burgers ever...
Jane McDonald
My brother and his wife met at Fred’s lunch back in the early 60’s
Gayle Phillips-Woloshyn
I think most people that lived in Mount Dennis remembers Fred & Hazel & Fred Jr. When I was very young I lived across the road from Fred's Lunch at 1339 Weston Rd. My Dad hung around Fred's & his siblings after him & then I had my turn.
Virginia Charbonneau
I remember Fred's Lunch where we use to hang out and get cherry cokes! It was on Weston Rd. across from Rutherford. Fred had a palamino horse that he trained to do tricks.

Joe Stickley
I do remember Fred lunch quite well from about 1966 to 1970, it was the hangout for teenagers in the area where everyone met all the time I used to play the pinball machine and the jukebox I remember everyone would hang out there and sit at the tables but some people wouldn't buy anything for hours and Fred would approach them with his pad and pen and say yes what can I get for you LOL
Jack Clarke
I spent way too many hours at Fred's. Got barred I don't know how many times, sometimes he would let you back in the same night that he barred you. They had a great baseball pinball machine there. On the underside of the tables there was hundreds of pieces of gum stuck there from generations past. Fred used to do quite a bit of TV commercials as well.
Doug Gaughan
Happy someone else remembers Fred's Lunch, I was only 7-8 years old, lived on Rutherford Rd. & would take my allowance & spend it on a cone of fries & a pop there. Owner was Fred Wilkinson, his wife & daughter & son-in-law ran the place for years as well as participated in the Weston Santa Claus parade. They always rode horses in the parade as the family also had a ranch somewhere called Wilkies Ranch.



The ins and outs of Fred’s lunch


by Selrahc Yrogerg

AT THE TOP OF RUTHERFORD,
on the other side of Weston Rd the west side, there was a restaurant called Fred’s Lunch where Fred, his wife Mabel who had dyed dark red hair and their son Fred Jr. and daughter Gina served up real greasy food in a country and western setting with wooden booths and a jukebox with songs from the fifties that hadn’t been changed in years, an old Marty Robbins song played over and over lamenting the streets of El Paso. Near the entrance there was a handful of dirty leatherette topped chrome stools that were wobbly and squeaked when they spun and towards the back of the building a row of wooden booths with built in coat hooks lined the wall and there was an opening where the food could be placed by the cook who had just gotten out of jail and he was wearing a stained white apron, a cigarette with a half inch of ash dangled from his mouth. Mabel would pick up the oblong french fry plates yellowed from age at the opening and serve them to customers, the place was never busy. The odd time mom (Gisele) would send me there to pick up a box of fish and chips for dinner and the food was terrible. If it wasn’t for Gina looking so pretty with her mane of golden hair I would never have gone, ever.
Fred Jr. could have been the character they created Woody from in a Disney cartoon, his body was long and elastic looking, I never saw him without a cowboy hat, tan ornately tooled cowboy boots and a leather belt with a large buckle that had a miniature steer head engraved on it. The engraving on the belt buckle looked a lot like the set of Bulls horns that were mounted on the wall above the kitchen serving window, along with a sign that read, ‘Hamburgers 30 cents’ beside the hamburger sign there was an inexpensively framed picture of a debutante from the waist up enjoying a bottle of coca cola that had been supplied by the pop company. In the corner of the dimly lit place in the area that led to the washrooms on the right hand side there were a couple of pinball machines where a young kid seemed to be always present, enthusiastically pressing the side buttons and flippers anxiously watching the heavy chrome ball as it spun its way past various bonuses noting when the ‘free game’ sign was on as the ball caromed from side to side towards an eventual sewer, the kid would grin when the ‘free game’ sign flashed and flashed, you could almost hear the carney like voice shout out, “we got a winnah”.
I later found out that Fred and Hazel owned the new plaza at Lawrence and Keele, well at least the land the plaza was built on. It was kinda like having Dale Evans and Roy Rogers in the neighbourhood, cause that’s how they dressed, like cowboys and cowgirls. Once a year there was a parade in the area, probably a Canada Day Parade and from the back of Fred’s Lunch, out of a low slung garage all these life size western figurines would emerge on a flat bed wagon attached to a bright red Massey farm tractor. Then, a big Palomino horse cautiously stepped out of a one horse trailer with Gina sitting on a beautifully tooled brown leather saddle with ornate silvery accents. More parade stuff would appear from inside the storage area, there was that unmistakable smell of fresh dropped horse turds and then the group of them, the entire family would proceed north down Weston Rd past Dutch Johns Suncrisp Fish and Chips shop, past Bannerman’s American Motors Rambler and Jeep dealership then turn right at Jane Street past Helen’s Variety and slowly travel over the new Jane Street bridge which had just been built to the big plaza, where the parade was to begin, plazas were new back then.



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