Calgary restaurant serving up burgers to those experiencing homelessness for Christmas

A Calgary restaurant is once again giving back in the hundreds to the city’s less fortunate for Christmas.

The Qiros, who are the owners of the Flipp’n Burgers restaurant at 330 10 Street NW in the Kensington area, are keeping their tradition of delivering burgers to homeless shelters on Christmas Eve alive.

They are hoping to break last year’s record when they gave away 700 free burgers in 2021, and 750 in 2022. They hope to top that by giving away 1,000 this year.

Jorgi Qiro, who moved to Calgary from Albania with his family in 2008, says they have been giving back to the YYC community for five years.

“During the holidays, we believe … no one should be hungry, no one should be less fortunate. It’s the holidays,” he said.

Seven hundred of the 1,000 burgers will be distributed to the Mustard Seed and the Drop-in Centre, with 400 for the former and 300 for the latter.

All hands will be on deck as they’ll be cooking all day at the restaurant.

“We have to have a couple of people cooking the burgers, a couple of people prepping them, a couple of people packaging them, a couple of people driving them to locations. So it’s going to be a busy day,” Qiro said,

The family will be giving the rest away to anyone who drops by the Kensington restaurant on Dec. 24.