“We put up this trench of planks to see what would happen,” Sukornyk said in an interview years ago. “People walked over the planks to come into the restaurant the first few days. There was no seating until years later. It was takeout. There was no lobby. It was open air. We were closed in.

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“Actually, because I saw us expanding into Quebec at a later date, I thought I’d name it after the great defenceman Doug Harvey with Les Canadiens hockey team,” Sukornyk recounted for the book. “Whenever I went to Montreal, I always saw Doug Harvey play. The name just came out of my head.”

Despite his terse departure, Sukornyk felt good about his time operating Harvey’s. He was the brand’s marketing expert and he was proud of what he had achieved.

Founders opted to launch the first Harvey’s in Richmond Hill at the corner of Yonge Street and Observatory Lane, on the site of a bankrupt Dairy Queen, in 1959.

Harvey's

“I did the majority of the work. I got the name. I had the original idea for Harvey’s. You have to appreciate that someone came up with an idea, with a thought. We were way ahead of our time. We were pioneers. We were first in Toronto with a food franchise,” he said. “George Cohon came in with McDonald’s years later.

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Founders opted to launch the first Harvey’s in Richmond Hill at the corner of Yonge Street and Observatory Lane, on the site of a bankrupt Dairy Queen, in 1959.

“I was twiddling my thumbs until one day, I met Rick and we played chess all day,” Sukornyk told me for a 2019 book I wrote about Mauran titled “Genius.”

“I never advertised the opening of Richmond Hill. Rick and I just opened up the doors and we grew from there. Rick would work days and I would work nights. We thought the first week, we’d just go with hot dogs but we discovered we would just die if we didn’t have hamburgers.

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At first, Sukornyk and Mauran had picked Humphrey’s as the name for their restaurant but they quickly concluded it was too long and also too expensive for a sign. Sukornyk went to a sign maker and scoffed when he found out “Humphrey’s” would cost $1,900. On the spot, he decided to go with Harvey’s; it would only cost $1,200.

Correction — Oct. 20, 2023: This story has been updated. An earlier version incorrectly stated that George Sukornyk was born in West Germany. West Germany was formed after his birth. Posen, his place of birth, is in present day Poland. In addition, Harvey’s remains today, 64 years after it’s first location, not 59 years, as incorrectly stated in a previous version.

How Sukornyk and Mauran arrived at Harvey’s as a moniker has been the source of much discussion over the years but Sukornyk explained how it came about. He debunked the theory about John Harvey, who was closing his used-car lot in Toronto.

Because through hardening has no effect on mild steel (<0.25% carbon), the material must be case or surface hardened. In a process known as carburizing, a chemically reactive source of carbon adheres to the mild steel during heating at a high temperature. Notably, the carbon source can be gas, liquid, or solid. Finally, after quenching, a hard surface layer, known as a “case”, will form. The most common depth is in the range 0.020”-0.030”. Importantly, the process results in increased hardness on the outside of the material; however, the low carbon core remains relatively soft. The outside is very hard but very brittle; however, the inside is soft and ductile. This combination is the best of both worlds. As a result, case hardened metals contain higher fracture hardness than through hardened steel.

“We also had french fries and chocolate milkshakes. That was the menu. We could only afford one shaker for the milkshakes. We went with one head and that was chocolate.”

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Sukornyk and Mauran also collaborated on other projects but after a long run as business partners in Harvey’s Foods Limited, Sukornyk parted ways with Mauran and the board of directors. The date was Oct. 15, 1971: Sukornyk had been out of town on a business trip and when he got off the plane, he was surprised to see Mauran there to greet him.

Harveys restaurant Marco Pierre White

Somewhere along the way during those games, Sukornyk and Mauran decided to open an eatery called Harvey’s. On Feb. 11, 1959, the new venture was incorporated as Harvey’s Drive-in Limited for $10, with the letters of patent costing $100.

Hardness, or the resistance to indentation or damage, is a very valuable trait in metals. Steelmakers can increase the strength of a material through different processes known as hardening. Steel hardening was common as early as the Greeks who used surface colors of the steel to determine quenching temperatures, a technique that was used up until the turn of the 20th century. Early smiths used a lot of “magic” to perfect their personal hardening techniques, often using quenching agents such as “dragons blood” or “dew of a May morning”. Luckily, today’s hardening techniques are based solely on science and not as much trial and error. There are two main types of hardening: case hardening, also known as surface, and through hardening.

Sukornyk, 96, died Oct. 6 and his Harvey’s legacy stands. Sixty-fouryears later after the opening of that first location, Harvey’s remains one of Canada’s most familiar brands, with close to 300 locations across the country.

He was born in Posen, Poland today, but came to Canada at the age of six months, attended Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto and was called to the bar at Osgoode Hall in 1956. His first job was as a real-estate lawyer, working upstairs in the Swiss Chalet building at 1409 Yonge St. for Imperial Oil Ltd., and he often ate rotisserie chicken downstairs. That was where he met Rick Mauran, Swiss Chalet’s founder.

“We were the first with selling franchises. You could smell the oil on a franchise. You better believe it. There was no shortage of people out there wanting to get a franchise. We had a lot of fun doing it.”

Because of the high cost of land in downtown Toronto, Sukornyk and Mauran opted to launch the first Harvey’s in Richmond Hill, at the corner of Yonge Street and Observatory Lane, on the site of a bankrupt Dairy Queen. Opening Day was April Fool’s Day, 1959. The venue consisted of a wooden building; the parking lot wasn’t paved.

The first Harvey’s restaurant, in its initial location at Yonge and Observatory Lane in Richmond Hill, as seen circa 1990. This venue of the eatery, which opened in 1959, was demolished in 2012 to make way for condos.

Through hardening occurs via heat treatment of medium and high carbon steels (>0.25% carbon). First, ovens heat the steel above its critical temperature, which lies between 1500°F-1900°F depending on alloy. Second, the material is cooled rapidly by dunking the material in water or oil in a process known as quenching. Finally, following quenching, tempering or annealing by reheating eliminates excess brittleness in the material. This process results in increased hardness throughout the material. Consequently, the increased hardness also leads to increased brittleness. In fact, the relatively brittle metal can fracture under impact or shock loads.

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