Retro Rotisserie’s Bill and Rose Christopher-Kozjan love their comfort food. Photo by Lisa Silverman

A few doors north of Sneakers, the Yonge Street hustler bar famed for its chicken, Bill and Rose Christopher-Kozjan have just opened a comfort food café that sells a different kind of meat, not from a rack but a rotisserie.

Having lived in the nabe for several years, the couple know first-hand its dearth of decent eateries. Unless diners are interested in bad pad thai served up with a side of nude pudding wrestling, locals are out of luck.

Creating a modest bistro setting - exposed brick, dark-chocolate wainscotted walls, mahogany tables and chairs - for classic Canadian comfort food that recalls a Kresge's lunch coun ter gone way upscale, this rotisserie may be retro, but it's completely contemporary as well.

The two based their concept on Kozjan's parents' similar spot in Welland. Whereas that resto serves no-nonsense hot meat sandwiches, the kids have reworked the diner template for somewhat more sophisticat ed tastes. Lean, shaved Angus beef and tender spit-roasted pork remain old-school con stants, but the nouveau fix in's are several notches above the norm.

The basic Retro Rotisserie Beef Sand wich ($8.25) features a quarter-pound of trimmed meat doused with commercial-tasting but conceptually correct gravy piled on a whole wheat kaiser. Alongside, find creamy cole slaw, buttery caramelized baby carrots in a brown sugar glaze scattered with crushed almonds, and hand-cut double-cooked curly fries. The alternate mashed, over-processed spuds could use a few lumps.

This two-fister gets even better with the addition of hot pickled banana pep pers, slices of tangy farmer's cheese and tissue-thin Spanish onion (Supreme, $8.75). However, Retro's hot pork sandwich fails to benefit from far too subtle Brie and pointless avocado ($9.75).

With so much meat, salads are secondary. A hockey puck of wonderful Wool wich goat cheese rides a bed of sweet spring baby greens (frisée, ra dic chio, arugula, spinach, red oak), English cuke and cherry tomatoes in a simple olive oil vinaigrette ($5.25 small/$7.45 large). The same salad ac com panies Salmon Cakes ($6.95), recycled and griddled mash with only the slightest suggestion of fish. And Beef Vegetable Barley Soup ($3.95) strikes me as cruel cafeteria gruel.

Staying with the retro theme, des serts just like Mom used to make are actually made by Christopher's moth er, Angelina: trad wedges of deep-dish apple, cherry ($3.95) and Southern pe can ($4.25) pie and three-tiered frost ed carrot cake ($4.75).

The service seems friendly enough, perpetually on the prowl up and down the narrow bistro's only aisle, to a big band soundtrack. Don't panic if something ordered doesn't arrive. The food comes out in stages, and no sooner do you wonder about a missing dish than it turns up at the table. And when's the last time you saw paper-wrapped tooth picks, perfect for après-dinner dig ging?

With all of Toronto on its doorstep for Pride weekend, recently opened Retro Rotisserie deserves its own parade.