Sandy's Snack Shack (Geppetto's) - Richer, MB

Hamburger - $5.50


Cheeseburger - $6.00


Adirondack Burger - $9.75

If you travel from Winnipeg to cottage country in The Whiteshell and Kenora, you probably know all about the kitschy wooden signs and fun lawn art creations at Geppetto’s along the Trans-Canada highway. What you may not know is that Geppetto’s wife Sandy also cooks up great food at the Snack Shack. Keep an eye out for the flags about 5 miles east of Richer (N49 39.748 W96 21.236). You can even phone in your order at (204) 422-8809.

The menu includes, perogies, chicken fingers, pulled pork, fries, hot dogs, and of course, my favourite - burgers! The star in the burger lineup is the Adirondack which sells for $249 but includes a chair. The chairs are John’s real talent and the Geppetto’s shop is where he builds his red cedar patio furniture. You can try out one of his lawn swings and enjoy your burger in comfortable shade.

If you don’t have room for any more Adirondack’s on your porch, you can have just the burger for $9.75. It’s a double burger with cheese, grilled onions, bacon, chili and all the usual groceries. Sandy hand forms the patties and cooks them up hot on the grill while you wait. It’s a firm, moist patty and tastes of beefy goodness.

She uses Bothwell cheese and the buns are fresh from Harvest Bakery. It’s a soft, light bun that held together nicely. There were three, thick, curled up slices of bacon and a liberal amount of chili that was more sweet than spicy.
Enough to make it messy, but not so much you needed a change of clothes afterwards. I also quite enjoyed the mess of fried onions. It’s a delicious, filling, burger.

The Adirondack was served wrapped in foil-paper with an exaggerated cocktail stick to hold the assembly together.

Karen opted for the smaller cheeseburger with chili and really enjoyed it. The standard condiments, mustard, relish and ketchup are on a side table for you to apply as required.

Another reason to stop at Geppetto’s is the fun 18 hole miniature golf course John had professionally designed and built. It’s challenging, with plenty of water features (and hazards) and some tricky breaks. It also shows that they’re big Bombers and Jets fans.

Geppetto’s celebrated their 20th anniversary on Labour Day in 2013 and John and Sandy put on free fish fry for anyone that came by. John fried up Red Snapper he’d caught in the Florida Keys and served it with beans.




They snowbird for the winter, and this spring returned with a crazy looking fry-guy, his girlfriend and a burger buddy.



If this all sounds like heaven to you, you may want to consider being married at Geppetto’s because John also performs marriages.