For six years, it’s been a mainstay on the late summer calendar. Now it’s history. With almost no hullabaloo whatsoever, Krystal has scrapped their annual Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship. The reason? Certainly not lack of interest. Last year’s finals drew a live audience of over 10,000 people to downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, in an [...]
Warning: the cheeseburger photo at the end of this column may not be safe for work. No, seriously. I’m not talking about a so-mouthwatering-it-might-be-considered-pornographic-to-diehard-carnivores food shot. This is actual cheeseburger erotica. But that didn’t stop 50 Cent from mass-mailing it out to his three million-plus followers via Twitter recently. The popular rapper uploaded a photo- [...]
Wanna start a food fight? Wander into an online chat room full of hamburger connoisseurs and announce in all caps that your favorite kind of burger is a patty melt. Then sit back and watch World War III erupt. Die-hard foodies will get downright violent in telling you that a patty melt is NOT a [...]
We all know them, the little burgundy-colored books with the funny name on the cover, packed with restaurant reviews for dozens of cities. Long before anyone with an ISP could “Like” something on Facebook or give 5 stars and their 2 cents on a website, Zagat’s restaurant surveyors were assigning scores on food, decor, service, [...]
Elkhart, Indiana knows hardship. Three times within the past century, whatever industry Elkhart has pinned its livelihood on has dried up and blown away, leaving this small town of about 50,000 with little more than a blue-collar work ethic to fall back on. (You may recall that President Obama all but named Elkhart the poster-child-city [...]
That sound you just heard was legions of Beltway burger fanatics having one collective (albeit anticipatory) burgergasm. New York City’s venerable Shake Shack announced plans this week to open a new location in the nation’s capital, causing an East Coast version of the foodie frenzy usually reserved for In-N-Out grand openings out West. The DC [...]
A recent family vacation had me “Back Home Again in Indiana” (native Hoosiers and anyone who has attended the Indy 500 over the past 30 years now has Jim Nabors’ velvety baritone voice stuck in their heads – you’re welcome) for a couple weeks of R&R. My trips back to Indiana- like most homecomings- are [...]
Gourmet burger chain Red Robin has opened up their annual Kids’ Cook-Off Contest. For the fifth year in a row, pint-sized chefs between the ages of 6 and 12 are invited to submit their best burger recipe through September 12. Finalists compete in a live cook-off in early December, and a grand prize winner will [...]
In writing for this site over the past 14 months, I’ve read reviews of hundreds of burger joints from all over the country. The ones that really strike my fancy go on a master list I keep. When I find myself traveling, I check my records, looking to cross off another hamburger hotspot while I’m [...]
McDonald’s announced recently that they’ll start selling smoothies. That news has prompted an unusual response from one smoothie chain. If a burger joint wants to go after a piece of the smoothie pie, then Jamba Juice has decided that they’ll break into the burger biz. They’ve released a video spot to debut their newest creation, [...]
Nashville. The capital of Tennessee, the center of the country music universe. Home of the Grand Ole Opry, with a downtown entertainment district full of enough neon-lit nightlife to earn it the nickname “Nashvegas.” For sports nuts, there’s the NFL’s Titans, the NHL’s Predators, and Vanderbilt University of the SEC. Fan of road food? It’s [...]
In perhaps the splashiest fast-food rollout since KFC’s Double Down, Carl’s Jr. this week has unveiled its new burger behemoth. Currently testing in a few California stores is the new Footlong Cheeseburger: But as close inspection of the super-sized sammie proves, that name is a bit misleading. The bun may be 12 inches long, but [...]
The state of Michigan looks to continue its claim as the Cheeseburger State this month when a new gourmet burger bar hits Ann Arbor. And this one isn’t just another Johnny-come-lately hamburger hut; it’s the brainchild of one of the burger biz’s big boys. Make that THE Big Boy: The burgermeisters behind Big Boy Restaurants, [...]
Fast-food heavyweight McDonald’s is slimming down… their menu. According to a company memo obtained by Crain’s Chicago Business, the Big N’ Tasty will be Dead N’ Gone by September 1. Introduced in 2001, the Big N’ Tasty burger, topped with lettuce and tomato, was seen as the clown’s direct response to Burger King’s Whopper. But [...]
I told you it was coming. Back in April, when The Cheesecake Factory was soliciting entries for a custom-built burg to add to their menu, I submitted my own creation. Sort of a “what if…” burger idea I’d been mentally preparing in my head for the better part of a year. And I told you [...]
During a recent visit to the UK, I found myself at one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of England, the Tower of London. The sprawling complex on the River Thames, consisting of numerous buildings inside a double-curtain stone wall and moat, is positively dripping with almost 1000 years of history. Construction began [...]
I recently had the opportunity to visit London for the first time. My list of must-visit places filled up quickly: the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Harrod’s. But as an English major and former theatre rat, I knew I’d also require a pilgrimage to Shakespeare’s Globe. Shakespeare’s Globe is a reconstruction of the [...]
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev embarked on a tour of the US to promote economic cooperation between the two countries. When he hit the nation’s capital, he got a free lunch out of the deal, paid for by the Commander-in-Chief. That’s Medvedev on the left, preparing to tuck into an all-American cheeseburger on Thursday while he [...]
“To celebrate World Cup in S. Africa we’re serving Lion Burgers this weekend! Don’t miss your opportunity to taste real African Lion, while supplies last!” With those words, posted on Facebook on June 14, the owners of il Vinaio in Mesa, AZ sparked a roaring firestorm of controversy. Cameron and Cindy Selogie ordered up a [...]
The Washington Nationals are not a very good baseball team. About 40% of the way through the MLB season, they’re 11 games out of first place. Last in their division. But a 22-year-old kid named Stephen Strasburg has given Beltway baseball fans and cheeseburger chowhounds alike something to cheer about recently. The right-handed pitcher from [...]
Fatburger is one of those chains I’d heard of (probably because of that overtly-obnoxious name) but never been to. Then, at a red light a few miles from home, I suddenly saw one I’d never noticed before, sandwiched between a Starbucks and some place wanting to buy my gold. I don’t drink coffee, and I [...]
In my part of the country, barbeque is a big deal. Folks ’round these parts get pretty fired up about hickory wood, smoke rings, bark, dry rubs, and secret sauces. Conventional wisdom suggests that the best barbeque (or barbecue, or BBQ, or B-B-Q, depending on your particular grammatical preference) can come only from an independent, [...]
A Vegemite sandwich, it sure ain’t. Owners of an Australian cafe have created a 210-pound cheeseburger, a feat they say will put them in the record books. The beastly burger is made up of 178 pounds of ground beef, 120 eggs used as a binding agent for the meat, 120 slices of cheese, 16 tomatoes, [...]
Hello, Cheese-burger.net Reader. Your dad asked me to pass along a message (since you never call home anymore). He said that for Father’s Day this year, he DOES NOT want another necktie. He is also patently not interested in a World’s Best Dad coffee mug, a hammer with his name engraved on the handle, a [...]
Ah, Memorial Day. The unofficial start of summer. Few things are more universally American around the last Monday in May than to take a dip in a newly-opened swimming pool, flip on a car race, and fire up the grill for the first big cookout of the season. Unless, of course, you’re staring down the [...]
If everything is, in fact, bigger in Texas, then residents of the Dallas suburb of Garland had better get ready for some ungodly-long lines. The iconic California burger chain In-N-Out has confirmed long-rumored plans to expand its reach to the Lone Star State for the first time. That was the scene in 2007 when In-N-Out [...]
Double-drive-thru chain Checkers (or Rally’s, depending on where you live) has unveiled plans to do a limited test launch of 6 new premium cheeseburgers. Dubbed the Flavor Built Burgers, the new menu items will feature top-shelf ingredients and toppings and be offered exclusively at 18 restaurants in the chain’s home state of Florida. “At Checkers, [...]
The best of a cheeseburger blended with everything that’s great about pizza sounds like a no-brainer awesome-on-awesome hybrid. But while the idea of a cheeseburger pizza sounds spectacular, I’m usually left feeling like I got neither a true cheeseburger experience nor real pizza taste. I was forced to reconsider, though, when the family and I [...]
Ever wonder where the most celebrated chefs in the world go when they need a fast-food fix? Men’s magazine Esquire did, asking A-list restaurateurs and famous TV foodies to name their top picks. Fried chicken, BBQ, tacos, and ice cream were all represented, but no category received the loyal love that cheeseburgers did. And one [...]
For someone who eats cheeseburgers on a semi-professional basis, I’m admittedly terrible about hitting new places. I finally made it to Grindhouse Killer Burgers months after they opened. It took me over a year to get to Flip Burger Boutique. And I spent an embarrassing 15 years in Atlanta before I found Ann’s Snack Bar, [...]