Chip stands are a ubiquitous part of Ontario’s landscape. Most chip stands began as a vehicle of some sort that morphed into a semi-permanent,retrofitted, DIYed shack. They are not pretty, nor do they pretend to be. They are not pristine eateries; you will be eating your food on the side of the road.
In Ontario, we can find chip stands in all kinds of vehicles from school buses to outmoded Canada Post trucks, from double-decker buses to antiquated train cabooses. These are the chip stands we love to draw, the vehicles that never go anywhere, and neverwill because they can’t, unless they’re towed away. They look as though they’ve been there for 50 years. The grass grows up between the wheels and the old wooden decking has floorboards that have been replaced dozens of times, but never properly.
The best ones seem as though they’re glued together with grease. Hand-painted signage has faded to white or light blue, and the menus have had their prices changed so often there are layers of white stickers pasted over each other from year to year, the new cost scribbled with black marker. It is the whimsy and the idiosyncrasies of the chip stand that have drawn us to illustrate more than 90 of them in the last 8 years, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of Ontario’s chip stands.
Foodies will scoff, but they are a part of Canadian culinary history; serving up our national dish, poutine, in varying degrees of quality and other fried delicacies such as the all-important French fry, the pogo, the hamburger, or a sausage on a bun. The menus are limited and some chip stands are traditionalists and sell only French fries.
When we started this project in 2015 we mistakenly thought of the chip stand as a truly Canadian-wide roadside eatery.
In our research and travels we have discovered the chip stand is mostly an Ontario establishment. In no other province will you find nearly as many chip stands(our estimates put Ontario’s chip stands at about 300-400). The reason for their popularity in Ontario may very well be attributed to Ontario’s proximity to the fromageries that provide the requisite cheese curds to make a traditional poutine.
Chip stands can be found in similar shacks and repurposed vehicles in other provinces: in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, although not nearly as many. In Québec, the place where poutine was invented, they have their own version of the chip stand, the casse-croûte, which often takes the shape of an established building with indoor seating and even heating and cooling for year-round service. We’ve even come across variations of the Ontario chip stand in the Netherlands, and in our research we have seen similarly repurposed vehicles selling Belgian frites in other European cities.
With the Ontario chip stand there is no pretense. The chip stand is where down-to-earth, real Canadians go to indulge. It’s the quintessential Canadian road trip food.
Every Chip Stand is an independent project by illustrator couple Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel to illustrate every chip stand in Ontario and Canada thus chronicling the visual history of these structures that are slowly being replaced by professional food trailers and trucks. We hope you enjoy our series and stop at a local chip stand next time you are on the road.
Every Chip Stand est un projet indépendant par époux-illustrateurs Chantal Bennett et Joel Kimmel où ils entretiennent d’illustrer tout les chip stands et casse-croûtes au Canada, débutant avec l’Ontario. Ils tentent de faire la chronique visuelle de ces structures peu appréciées qui, au fur et à mesure que le temps passe, se font remplacer par des restaurants mobiles à l’apparence peu intéressante. Nous espérons que vous apprécierez notre série d’illustrations et que vous choisirez de fréquenter un casse-croûte la prochaine fois que vous êtes sur la route.
How we choose our chip stands: There are SO many chip stands, chip trucks, chip wagons, casse-croûtes, etc. across Canada that it would take us forever to illustrate every single one. In the last two seasons of the project, we have been prioritizing visually-interesting chip stands; meaning the more stuff around the chip stand, the better. In the past five years or so, we have noticed that the older, more ramshackle chip stands are being replaced by shiny new (boring) food trailers. This does not a good illustration make, which is why you will see us prioritizing older chip stands, or ones that have made an effort to be visually-interesting (yes that includes built-up structures around it that some people find visually-offensive, ha). We welcome suggestions for new chip stands to draw, so please send us your recommendations for fun, visually-interesting chip stands to include in the project.