The Brookings Burger Clash is heating up this year with 28 potential winners for people to try and vote on.
This year’s Clash began on Jan. 1 and will continue until Feb. 28. You can get more information on the Burgers at visitbrookingssd.com and cast your vote at brookingshometeam.com.
The Brookings Burger Clash was created by Shane Andersen, a realtor with over 15 years in the food industry. Andersen says that he started the contest in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and because the food industry “Still has a piece of my heart.”
“The main idea was to showcase these restaurants. That was the main idea for all this,” said Andersen. “It’s my way to give back to the community.”
He also says it’s a way to help businesses during a typically slow part of the year.
Andersen says that the process of getting the Burger Clash put together is “like herding cats,” and that, “every year I learn something new about this.”
Andersen reaches out to participants as early as October in order to get businesses thinking about what they want to do, and then it takes him about a week to get all of them on the website.
Voter turnout has been a little higher this year than it has been in the past, and this year’s competition will feature four new restaurants, Andersen said.
To him, the Burger Clash has succeeded in helping out businesses during this lull in the financial year. Andersen said, “I’ve been told by some businesses that they’ve had some record breaking January’s due to the burger clash.”
Andersen wants people who participate in the Burger Clash to know that, “I always like to thank the community for taking time out of their day and supporting the community.”
Kevin Raab, owner of Pints and Quarts says, “It is a great event for the local restaurants. It gets people going out at a time that is usually slow. I enjoy that people come out that might not have tried us before or haven’t been in a while,” said Raab.

Raab won last year’s Burger clash with their “Drunken Lucy” burger. Pints and Quarts also won in 2022.
This year, the restaurant is throwing their hat into the ring with their “50/50” burger. “The patty of the burger is half ground beef and half ground bacon. That’s why we called it the 50/50 burger,” said Raab.
What makes this year’s burger stand out amongst the competition, according to Raab is “the patty is half bacon makes it very unique. I wanted to try something different and give people an experience they couldn’t get from anywhere else.”
He says that his inspiration for creating new burgers comes from wanting guests to have a good experience. “I want to try to have quality unique burgers so that it would be memorable for our guests,” Raab said.
Raab also agrees with the efficacy of Andersens initial intent for the Burger Clash.
“I think the Burger Clash is a good idea and I hope it helps local restaurants grow and thrive,” Rabb said.