Ogopogo Burgers & Shakes

Heat is the defining fact of an Osoyoos summer, and it shapes how people eat here. The valley bottom is the hottest, driest pocket of the Canadian interior, which pushes lunch outdoors, later in the day, and toward the kind of food you can carry to a beach towel. Ogopogo Burgers and Shakes works from 8515B Main Street, in the stretch of downtown where the border route, the motels and the lakefront all sit within a short walk of each other.

Orders can also go through the Clover ordering page rather than the counter, which is worth knowing in July when the sidewalk out front is busy and a pickup slot saves standing in the sun. Parking in the middle of downtown tightens through the summer, so plenty of people walk over from the beach or from one of the motel streets instead of moving the car. Outside the peak weeks the pace changes completely, and a place like this settles back into feeding locals, highway traffic and the winter visitors who come south for the mild end of the valley.