The fourth annual Brookings Burger Clash is underway, featuring 23 restaurants in the area, competing for the title of the best burger in Brookings.
The Burger Clash started Jan. 1 and the competition runs until Feb. 29.
The event, organized by realtor Shane Andersen and the Brookings Home Team powered by Century 21, says he started the annual event as a way for businesses to gain extra traffic early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When COVID hit, that really shut everyone down and we decided, let’s just do a Burger Clash and help these restaurants get some traffic,” said Andersen.
Andersen worked in the restaurant business for about 15 years and said he has a special place in his heart for the industry. He knows that historically this time of the year has been tough on restaurants because holidays and cold weather tend to keep customers away.
“Every year brings new challenges. In the beginning, it was figuring out the logistics and how it would all come together,” Andersen said. “For this year, it was how long it was going to take to start.”
This year, Andersen reached out to competitors in October, and it took a couple weeks to build the website so that it was finished in time for the competition.
“The challenging part is getting all the information in time, because some of these guys don’t know if they are going to have ingredients for their burgers the entire two months,” Andersen said.
Also, this year’s Burger Clash has streamlined its voting process. Each restaurant now has its own designated table tents, supplied by Visit Brookings. It includes a QR code that leads to the voting website, Andersen said.
“Visit Brookings helped supply the table tents and have given us a lot of exposure on their website,” Andersen said. “It’s big for these restaurants to get that much more traffic and eyeballs on them.”
SDSU student, Cade Kirchner, a senior data science major from Sioux Falls, was happy to learn Brookings had its own Burger Clash similar to the Sioux Falls Burger Battle.
“I didn’t know Brookings had a burger competition,” Kircher said. “I’ll have to look into it more, but from what I’ve seen, I think Craft’s (burger) looks the best.”
Last year’s winner, Rub ‘N Tug BBQ opened their restaurant in November 2021. Co-owner Kristina Patterson hopes to win again this year with their new burger, “The EncheesyLotta Burger.”
“We usually sell large enchiladas on Thursdays,” Patterson said. “I couldn’t come up with an idea that hadn’t been done yet, so I decided to cut those (enchiladas) into thirds and put them on top.”
Patterson said she is grateful for the Burger Clash and has seen her business grow as a result of winning last year’s competition.
“The competition helped give us some notoriety and it was honestly free advertising,” Patterson said. “Getting to know different customers and getting a new client base has been great. We brought in 30% new customers with the Burger Clash. Being more popular with a good rating around here helps bring in new people as well.”
Patterson also plans to bring back last year’s winning burger once this year’s Burger Clash finishes, because it has become a customer favorite. “The French OnYum” is a beef brisket burger topped with crispy onions and melted Swiss cheese. It also features a homemade BBQ sauce and is smothered in sour cream-French onion soup mixture.
Patterson also thinks it’s important to make their burgers stand out from the rest of the competition instead of falling into a theme.
“A lot of restaurants are doing different variations of bacon cheeseburgers,” Patterson said. “When I started looking through the list, ‘I said Oh man, did I miss the mark? Was it supposed to be bacon-themed?’ But I saw a couple of burgers that were different.”
Event organizer Andersen also has noticed a yearly theme that gets created by participants.
“Unintentionally, a theme transpires each year,” Andersen said. “Last year was a spicy theme. A lot of the burgers had jalapeños and cayenne pepper. The year before, it was eggs.”
This year, the bun seems to be the theme. Some restaurants are using waffles for a bun, and there’s a restaurant using a glazed donut for the bun.
“Maybe we need to start doing a theme of the year and see how that goes,” Anderson said. “It’s always interesting to see what restaurants come up with because they always outdo themselves.”
For the future of the Burger Clash, Andersen said he is open to any suggestions to grow the event and hopes to see more restaurants participate.
“Anyone that wants to sell a burger, I’d love to see the competition grow even more,” said Andersen.