The pretty young waitress stops at our table: “Can I start you guys off with a drink?” My wife puts down the wine list and orders a bottle of Jackson-Triggs Okanagan viognier. “Sure,” says the waitress; then she turns to me. “And for you, sir?”

I suggest that we’ll probably share the one bottle for now. The waitress is satisfied.

It’s a small but curious dislocation of normality—like finding such a decent Okanagan wine in Ontario for a mere $30—but that’s how things are in the oxymoronic world of “casual fine dining” chains. We’re at Earls in Mississauga’s Square One shopping centre, and the place is packed. The bar area, with its high-top tables and wall of TV screens, is full of snacking 20-somethings. The dining room is packed with families, office groups and courting couples, all of whom seem to enjoy the eclectic menu and the decor. To me, the white “stacked-stone” walls and light fixtures of clear plastic beads are pure suburban kitsch. Not so, explains my wife: the look is actually a clever take on late-’60s Canadian style.

Either way, Earls is hopping. And so are all its rivals, dotting the area around the mall, Mississauga’s sprawling social hub. There’s Milestone’s, like Earls, a western Canadian phenomenon recently arrived in Ontario. There’s Bâton Rouge, proud of its Louisiana-style ribs but born in Quebec. And there’s Jack Astor’s and Alice Fazooli’s Italian Grill and the more grown-up Canyon Creek Chophouse, all three of them the creations of Burlington’s SIR Corp. The dining equivalent of big-box stores, these concept restaurants have been quietly multi­plying for years in the burbs.

Now they’re colonizing the downtown, taking over vast spaces on Front Street and in the club district, zeroing in on Toronto Life Square. The cost of setting one up is astronomical—well over $4 million—so their proliferation is further proof of their popularity. But with whom? Tourists? We don’t have tourists anymore. Suburban youth drinking and fuelling up before the clubs open? Certainly, but that’s only three even­ings a week. Sports crowds? I guess, on nights when one of our lacklustre teams is playing. But it has to be more than that. There can only be one explanation. Torontonians like these places. The question is why.

If you’ve spent any time in B.C. or Alberta, you already know Earls. Out there, the name carries a sterling reputation for above-average food and well-trained, good-looking servers. There are 57 Earlses in all, including three in the U.S., but so far the Earls in Mississauga is the only one east of Manitoba. “Do you know why?” asks our waitress as she pours the viognier, and she proceeds to explain, surprising me again, this time with her grasp of the corporate narrative. Back in the 1960s, there was a company called Controlled Foods owned by a guy from Ontario named Ken Fowler and a forthright fellow from Edmonton by the name of Leroy Earl “Bus” Fuller. They sold the company in 1983 and unofficially agreed to divide the country. Based in Vancouver, Fuller and three of his sons started Earls, Joeys and Saltlik steak houses. They own some 96 restaurants in all, including a partial stake in the Cactus Club Café chain. Fowler and his son got the rest of the country and created SIR Corp., which begat the aforementioned Ontario chains, as well as more sophisticated restaurants, such as Reds and Far Niente.

Some years ago, a Jack Astor’s opened in Calgary. Now Earls is all set to open 10 places in the east over the next five years. They have been looking for a suitably huge downtown location for the past four years, but SIR Corp. seems to have grabbed all the good spots.

Before Fowler and Fuller’s amicable divorce, there was a child—one of the first Earlses, born in 1983 at Yonge and Eglinton. It lived barely a year, part restaurant, part lounge, then fell victim to the split. Ancient history—still, it’s interesting that so many of Canada’s chains share a common ancestry. In the west, they are all distinct. Every teen knows the pecking order: that Milestone’s is one rung lower than Earls, that the Cactus Club Café has recently overtaken them both since superstar chef Rob Feenie came aboard to recreate the menus. He added treats from his previous restaurant, Lumière, like butternut squash ravioli and sandwiches of barbecued duck, chicken and prosciutto on pecan fruit bread. Here in Ontario, the chains tend to blur into one indigestible mass, and no one comes close to attempting the food that Feenie is introducing. Perhaps things will perk up when Earls moves downtown sometime in 2010.