Burger Showdown

Burger Showdown advertised pictures of some amazing burgers on Facebook… that were not available to sample at the festival. Burger Showdown did feature some amazing burgers… on the judges table… for us to look at lol. The burger sampling for $ 20 featured burgers that were mostly plain and lacking basic condiments like tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese, pickles, mushrooms, ketchup and mustard. Most of the vendors did not offer ketchup and mustard which really killed me. This was the first time in a long time I had to eat burgers without ketchup and Mustard and it just felt wrong. I really had to force myself to down these dry basic burgers because I was hungry. For half of the $ 20 basic burger tasting fee, I could have easily had a mega-​deluxe burger as pictured on the event’s Facebook page and on the judge’s table at any regular sit-​down restaurant with a side and had money left over, instead of having a bunch of plain baby-​sized sliders. Burger Showdown falsely advertised this event as lasting until 9PM. At 8PM by the time I got there, half the vendors had already packed up and beer was no longer even available for purchase. The competing restaurants need to not be so cheap to festival goers next year. I know these restaurants have amazing burgers for $ 6-​$ 8 so why are they serving basic crap for $ 20?
Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina Champions Sports Bar served the «I Smell Bacon! Ybor Cuban Burger» which featured Bacon, Ground Shortrib, House-​Smoke Pork, House-​made Cuban bread, Swiss cheese, a pickle, mayo, and mustard. This was by far the best burger available for the common folk but still missing tomatoes, onions, and ketchup. ⁶⁄₁₀
Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina’s Champions Sports Bar also served «Where’s the Beef? Spicy Caribbean Jerk Chicken Burger» which featured Juicy Lucy, Butter Cheese, Mango Slaw, Spicy Caribbean Jerk Chicken, and Rum Pineapple Mayo. I liked the spice of this burger but it definitely could have used more condiments ⁵⁄₁₀
Duffy’s Sports Grill served a Katsu Burger w Tempura Angus Beef, Poke slaw, hibachi yum yum sauce, lobster fried rice, and even a rib! Duffy’s definitely gets some bonus points for thinking outside the box and providing something different but from a health standpoint, I really can’t give a high score to anything deep fried ⁵⁄₁₀
Wow That’s Fresh provided a plain-​Jane cheeseburger reminiscent of a 50 cent Mcdonald’s cheeseburger but with less ingredients — no tomatoes onions lettuce ketchup or mustard and it was terribly salty. ¹⁄₁₀
Eats American Grill provided a plain-​Jane burger with just an over-​cooked meat patty and buns — no tomatoes onions lettuce ketchup or mustard. Surprisingly Eats American Grill won the taste competition with the judges because they gave the judges a completely different deluxe burger. I give them last place. ¹⁄₁₀
7 of the vendors — Hard Rock Café, Grey/​Salt, Just Grillin, Duke’s Brewhouse, James Joyce, Grille One Sixteen, and the Rolling Gourmet packed up and were out of food by 8PM (1 Hour early) ⁰⁄₁₀
James Joyce BBQ Burger packed up and was out of food by 8PM (1 Hour early) but i heard their burger had grilled onions, Jalapenos, sweet BBQ, but no tomatoes, lettuce, or other condiments. ⁰⁄₁₀
Grille One Sixteen packed up and was out of food by 8PM (1 Hour early). I heard they had a pretty good doughnut burger which consisted of doughnut buns, beef, and bacon, and missing other condiments. ⁰⁄₁₀
The Burger Showdown’s big winner, EATS! American Grill — Bring the Heat, Best Beef Burger and Best Burger in Tampa Bay, the competition’s top honor. Other spots that reigned victorious: Grille One Sixteen’s doughnut burger (Best Use of Bacon), Champions Sports Bar’s spicy Caribbean jerk chicken (Best Other Than Beef) and WOW! That’s Fresh (People’s Choice Award). Last year’s Best Burger in Tampa Bay winner was James Joyce Irish Pub.

Was SO happy with the way this event at Curtis Hixon was executed. Instead of having to guess how many tickets you would need, one wrist band coveted the entire event, which was great. The samples were extremely generous and every one was delicious. $ 7 beers were a little steep, but they were large in size.
My only suggestion would be top fence off the area and only let people in who bought wrist bands. Towards the end of the night, groups of people who clearly didn’t have wrist bands are walking around and helping themselves to samples with no one making any attempt to check for wrist bands on anyone.. makes me wonder why I bought a ticket..

Won my tickets from Unilocal!And brought a good friend with me. Loved that it was Curtis Hixon Park! My friend and I were able to get two Budwiser beer samples and were able to play plinko 2x each. My first round I won an awesome shirt and so did my friend. 2^nd round we got lucky I won the very last Coleman cooler and she won a chair. Thankfully a nice vendor nearby let us store it there until the event ended.
Next we started at Duffys with their Katsu Burger that also provided a rib and lobster fried rice. The burger was okay– I wished they would have had the hangover burger as their burger of choice but still good. The rib was good and I was shocked that there was so much lobster in my friend rice.
Next was a classic cheeseburger from Wow fresh! This was actually one of my favorites. It was fresh, perfectly cooked, and the cheese was amazing! I’ll be visiting that restaurant sometime soon.
Next was the Cuban burger from Eats! It was okay the burger was cooked well but the bread didn’t pair well.
Then we had the James Joyce BBQ burger! Wow so tasty and delicious! Had a great balance of spice from the jalapeño that paired great with the sweetness of the BBQ. — in my book they won!
Then we had to wait in a very long line for the much anticipated donut burger from Grill One Sixteen! Wow very tasty!
Unfortunately I could eat no more and was stuffed! I didn’t get to try Hard Rock and 2 others. We enjoyed the live music and the beautiful city views! The beer and wine selection was not great. To pay $ 7 for a glass of wine that I can buy a bottle for $ 5 erked me a bit. Wish they had a craft beer selection. Okay, if you schedule an outside event in the Florida during the summer, please provide your guests with some shade! There were a few people that were getting heat exhaustion and the only place for shade was to walk up on the steps of the park to escape the sun.
I feel like the waters should have been free since it was so hot outside. Once the sun went down it was perfect outside. Another suggestion would be to move the event from 7 – 11 instead of 5 – 9 so that people could make a night out of it and not be so hot. Overall this was a great experience and had a lot of fun and hope they provide some shaded options for next time!

Awesome event and my first time going! Thanks for everyone who put their time into this! I voted for The Rolling Gourmet, definitely a great burger with some of the most amazing flavors I’ve ever had!

Awesome event! Wow that’s Fresh was awesome! Loved the music and the burgers were great!

I won my tickets from Mix 100.7! There are so many options it wasn’t easy choosing my favorite. I voted for the Rolling Gourmet which was our first stop. They had a gyro burger and fries that they provided. Second favorite was the Jack Daniels BBQ burger from James Joyce Irish Pub. I appreciated that they handed out 2 for 1 vouchers for when we visit their location.
Everyone was very friendly and the entertainment was enjoyable! Glad to see we had a Unilocal tent representing too! We will return next year for sure.
*There was only one annoyance… The pushy guy who got pissed we wouldn’t sign a petition to legalize marijuana.

Burger Showdown was quite an interesting experience. Half of the places were from local restaurants on one side while the other side had a selection of food trucks. There was also a local high school making burgers.
Some vendors were present such as a local radio station, Verizon Wireless, someone selling hot sauces, as well as homemade popsicles. You can buy water and beer, and one burger vendor gave out lemonade which was the best, but of course was gone early in the night.
There were different fixins on the burgers such as brisket, pork, onion rings, hash browns, plaintains, but when I finally got to them, a lot of them were cold. I really just took a bite and pushed it to the side.
I tried a Polynesian burger, and a burger from Pellagia Trattoria, and a jalapeño burger, and the burger with the waffle instead of bun from Wicked Witches. I didnt get to try the Olive Burger which sounded like it was a fave for many. All in all, it was pretty fun with my Unilocal buds.
We were able to get a good sized table closer to the Hillsborough River in the shade. It was scorching hot, and that helped a lot.
The country music blaring was killing me. I hope they have better music next time.

I attended this event last year, it rained and it was much smaller. I can say this year was way better. When I got there it was fairly empty, people started showing up later in the day and that meant lines started to get longer. I only tried a few, some were a bit dry, others a bit spicy. Wicked witches burger was very good and moist but they ran out of food early probably not a good thing when you need votes perhaps people may have gotten seconds. Overall a good event. Maybe they should try to add wine and liquor next year and use trash cans with an open lid. No one wants to touch that then eat with your hands.

I enjoyed the event. The burgers and accompaniments tended to be overseasoned (SALTY) and if you want a gourmet burger experience you’re better off going to one of the restaurants and getting one to order in comfort, but this charity event was a good time out in the sunshine of Curtis Hixon Park.
The full burgers were displayed on a judges tables and fest goers get to try them (sample sizes) at the different vendors. Drinks are available for purchase.
Honestly I am having trouble keep track of all of them but I liked the Polynesian, olive burger, the one from Empress with plantain (although a little sauce would have made it extra smooth) and Pelagia Trattoria’s offering. I know I liked what I had from the Rolling Gourmet.
It was hot out but fun. This area of downtown Tampa by the museums and River Walk has beautiful views. There was a great turnout of Unilocalers.
The lines got a bit cray cray and some places ran out. But it was still fun.

First: Thanks for the tickets! I’ve never been to one of these events, so the fact that I got to bring my husband and 2 of our friends, well, that was a really nice treat!
We arrived around 7pm, while the event was in full swing. I popped over to the ticketing tent (clearly missing the sign on the back side that said WILL CALL, and just gave the woman there my name. She pulled up my tickets and asked if I had anyone with me who’d be drinking. Oh yeah. so I called my friends all over to me and we showed our ID’s, got banded and then headed into the fray.
There were a lot of choices, and my tummy isn’t that big these days, but MAN oh MAN where do you start. I have to admit I was impressed with the offerings from James Joyce Irish pub, their Buffalo Chicken burger and their Jamison Burger were delicious.
The waffle fry and oil infused burger from Wicked Wiches was so tender and flavourful, but Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING beat what EATS! put out. Their burger was served hot, fresh from the grill and super juicy. Every time that someone voted for them, their whole team cheered! Seriously good eats from Eats.
By the time that the rest of my compatriots finished up — i’d wussed out early on, I got us all Ice Pops from the only place offering cool sweet treats, and they were absolutely scrumptious.
A round of applause to the folks that both participated in the event, attended and ran it. I lost my phone. I apparently dropped it while taking a photo, and someone actually turned it in. Man, that 20 minute period of my life was. dark. Looking back, I know it’s not the worlds end, but Jeez, that left me scared. So thanks to EVERYONE there, for being good people!

This year, the event took place in the rain location, but was still fun. The cover band playing was great, and the venue seemed well organized.
The burger from Eats American Grill was spiced with something interesting, but the bun was to die for.
Me and My Grillfriend served up a tender situation that was covered in onions.
James Joyce had a good one, too. The cucumber added to it was interesting and new to me.
Ferg’s had a tasty burger doused in BBQ sauce. It originally was going to get my vote, but I realized that the BBQ sauce, not the chef, was doing all the work.
My choice for a win was Green Iguana’s Black and Bleu Burger. That burger changed my life.
Overall, this event was super fun!

This event was really fun. It was moved into the Gasparilla Plaza since it had been raining, but I still had fun.
There were several places offering out samples of their burgers, and I haven’t been to any of them before so it was nice to get an idea of the burgers in the area! My favorite was probably the burger from James Joyce in Ybor.
Their meat was the most tender and juiciest of all of the burgers. Green Iguana probably had the best burger topping-​wise. Their blue cheese burger had fried onions and an awesome sauce to boot.
Eats had an awesome burger meat-​wise, but their toppings weren’t that great. They were offering out fresh chips which was a nice touch.
There were several other great places and craft beer tasting as well. I was lucky enough to receive these tickets from the Unilocal contest, but I would definitely pay the money for the tickets next year. For unlimited sampling of burgers, $ 15 is tough to beat.
I wish there would have been more beverages besides beer. I don’t drink, and there was only flavored water, but maybe next year the event people will have a bigger variety in the drink department!

Is was a can’t miss event! The burger samples were divine. The beer samples were all from Sweet Water and they had a different flavor for different types of palates. Each business that participated had their own twist on the burger. James Joyce had a spicy Asian sauce that you would normally see on sushi. While Fergs Sports Bar went with bacon and american cheese. Eats! American Grill was there as well and had a a delicious burger as well that came with a side of fries. Green Iguana gave you the option of two different burgers a Caribbean burger or a black and bleu burger. Even with the rain the event was a huge success and I can’t wait to see who the winner is best burger in tampa bay!