A cloud of smoke rises from the orange-colored Cherry Cricket tent as a team of 16 members hustles to dish out the Cricket Royale: a braised short rib, bone marrow, melted cave aged Swiss cheese and duxelles burger.
Pretzel buns are lined in rows inside of silver trays, waiting to be stacked with steamy Swiss melted patties. A man in black gloves sprinkles crispy onions on each burger before the top bun is placed and then cut into quarter slices. Each one is sent out on a wooden stake that's got a white flag on it, one side reading "Denver Burger Battle" and the other "Cherry Cricket."
"I feel like we have a big target on our back," said Heidi Ziepprecht, the general manager of Cherry Cricket Cherry Creek. "I think everyone is gunning for us."
Over 20 restaurants competed in this year's 12th annual Denver Burger Battle, a competition hosted Thursday at Auraria Campus' Tivoli Quad, in hopes of being crowned the best burger in Denver.
More than 1,500 attendees taste-tested and voted on their favorite burger to determine the People's Choice winner. Meanwhile, a panel of eight judges that included local TV hosts, food personalities and food entrepreneurs did their own blind tasting to determine the Judge's Choice winner.
"Bragging rights!" said Ziepprecht when asked what this means for the burger community.
The popular "build-your-own burger" restaurant is coming into this year's competition as defending champs, winning the People's Choice award two years in a row and Judge's Choice back in 2019, making them the all-time winningest restaurant at Denver Burger Battle.
"I think we love our fans as much as they love us," Ziepprecht said. "We aim to please."
Defending their title will not come easy. To the left of their tent is a blue shirt crew with a big "51" on their backs representing the number of self-pour beer, wine and cocktails taps at their location on the border of northwest Aurora and Denver's Central Park neighborhood.
Stanley Beer Hall is the defending 2022 Judge's Choice winner and presents a worthy opponent to the Cherry Cricket juggernaut. Their line of attendees is waiting to get their quarter slice of the Lemoncello Burger: a Niman Ranch prime rib burger with limoncello goat cheese, Meyers lemon pepper jelly and a sprinkle of strawberry-flavored pop rocks.
"It's an out-of-the-box kind of burger but that's what we are," said Yvette Madero, supervisor at Stanley Beer Hall.
On the other side of the quad is Snarfburger, the 2021 Judge's Choice winner, and a team of about ten people dishing out their Snarfburger Double: a double beef patty burger with the classic cheese, lettuce, tomato assortment on a toasted bun. It's simple but far from ordinary.
"It's just a great, classic, old-school burger and so we have a lot of pride in it," said Helen Wood, director of marketing for Snarf's Sandwiches and Snarfburger. "This really is our number one burger. We know it's what people love and so we just want to bring that to everyone today."
Snarfburger first opened in 2013 in Boulder before eventually opening two locations in Denver, one in Capitol Hill and another in Sloan Lake back in 2019.
"The fact that we have this many great [restaurants] competing and doing really well speaks volumes for Denver and Denver's food scene," Wood said.
From attendee to judge
Tyler Dubois, burger enthusiast and co-founder of the Real Dill Pickle Company, has been attending the Denver Burger Battle competition for many years. He's had many experiences among the attendees but this year he was selected to be one of the eight judges responsible for giving out the Judge's Choice trophy.
"When they asked me to judge it I was pumped because I take it really seriously anyway," Dubois said.
Sure enough, as we approached Dubois for an interview he was head down scribbling detailed notes, paying close attention to a burger's texture, buns, presentation and flavor.
"I think burgers are universally loved," Dubois said. "Everyone has a burger at some point in their life that takes them to a place, they remember it and they love it."
Every 20 minutes, judges are brought out four new burgers to try from. It's a blind tasting so they don't know where they are from. If they eat the entire quarter-slice sample, that would be the equivalent to eating five burgers in one sitting.
"I was born for this," Dubois said. "To sit down and taste 20 restaurants you know worked really hard to come up with a concept that is fun, unique, exciting and most importantly delicious, it's really a fun experience. I'm not gonna lie, I may have to go back and get seconds on a few of these."
There's something about the magic of a burger, a handheld food that for Dubois is a really grounding and connecting experience when it comes to the way we consume food, that keeps him coming back every year.
"Having worked in a kitchen, it's hard work," Dubois said. "Sometimes it can be really thankless work and quite often it hasn't paid very well. But the camaraderie of coming together to make something delicious that you believe in and that you're working with several people to do, it's a special feeling."
Repeat champions
After more than four hours of dishing out quarter-sliced burgers to a multitude of hungry burger enthusiasts, two restaurants returned to the podiums where they have once stood before.
Cherry Cricket took home the 2023 People's Choice award for their Cricket Royale burger, making it three years in a row now that they have claimed the trophy.
"Crafting our entry is an incredibly collaborative process - each store presents two burgers back in January, then we whittle down to one finalist burger that we perfect for weeks," said Cherry Cricket Littleton General Manager Samantha Taxin. "Even though this is the fourth Denver Burger Battle in a row Cherry Cricket has taken home a trophy, winning never gets less exciting or special."
Snarfburger won over the hearts and taste buds of the panel of judges, taking home the 2023 Judge's Choice award for the first time since winning the same award back in 2021.
"We put our trust in our classic Snarfburger and it has yet to fail us," said Snarfburger area manager Khalil Kong-Quee. "Two years ago when we won Judge's Choice, we saw huge sales increases. People come in chasing the burger from the battle, then become lifelong fans."
From the well-known staples to the newer competitors, 16 members crews and four-member crews, local restaurants brought out the best they had to offer.
For over four hours, local burger connoisseurs trekked around the Tivoli Quad taste-testing some of Denver's best, melting in the August heat but losing themselves in the magic of beef patties, melted cheese and whatever else Chefs felt like throwing in the mix.
