The votes have been tallied and Nelson’s Best Burger has been declared a draw.
For the past few weeks {vurb} and the Nelson Star have been asking readers to go to nelsonstar.com and weigh in what burger they think is the best amongst participating restaurants. The winners of Nelson’s Best Burger for 2012 is Finley’s and Bite.
“It was actually a fun race, really exciting until the end,” says Joscelyn Harris, owner of the Bite food truck.
“We’ve had a ton of people coming in for burgers,” adds Tanya Finley, owner of Finley’s. “They have talked about the other burgers and given us new ideas… it was a fantastic way to get people aware of the fantastic food we have in Nelson.”
After thousands of votes were cast, it might seem odd that there was a tie. A computer glitch in the final hours of the on-line voting made it impossible to declare one winner, so two were given the nod.
“Finley’s and Bite were well ahead of the other six restaurants in voting,” explains Star operations manager Karen Bennett.
“After sorting out what went wrong, the fairest route to go was with a tie. We congratulate both winners, thank all the restaurants that participated and of course all the readers who cast votes.”
Other restaurants involved in the contest included Relish, Jackson’s Hole, the Hume Hotel, Kootenay Time, Uptown Tavern and Bogustown.
With all participants getting a chance to sing the praises of their offerings in the pages of the Star over the last month, Finley says it helped all those who took part.
“It’s amazing how many toppings you can put on a burger to make it unique and the amount of local products being added is very positive,” says Finley. “It’s a great way to make diversity within the burgers.”
Though ultimate champions were determined, Harris says the local restaurant industry is the winner.
“It was a very friendly competition and ultimately competition is healthy for everyone involved,” she says. “It helped promote all of our businesses.”
For all the feature stories on the participating restaurants, head to nelsonstar.com and look under the business tab.
