Today is the Burger Battle, which is about as exciting as happy hour at YOLO. Like everything else in Fort Lauderdale, the same events year after year are part of the culture; nobody ever has a new idea. The first two burger battles were won by Georgie's Alibi, which sparked intense controversy because, after all, why were they even in the contest? The Riverwalk Trust is known for sketchy stuff; last year Indigo won "Best Restaurant"; Indigo is owned by the Las Olas Company who are synonymous with the Riverwalk Trust, and the idea that something unsavory might be going on wasn't entirely out of the question, particularly when we all know that there isn't one person that anyone knows who thinks that Indigo is even the best restaurant on the block.
Damaging the contest this year is that places with arguably the best burgers in town, the Capital Grille and Morton's, aren't participating. Other popular places that advertise their burgers, Tap 42, Gilbert's, Duffy's; not participating. Even Johnny V is out this year; is there even 1 real chef in the contest? The contest has so many places that I wouldn't consider going to for a burger it's ridiculous. I'm surprised Wendy's isn't in the lineup.
I'm astonished at the foolishness of businesses that participate in this. Does Gimme a Burger, who doesn't even have the best burger within a 50 yard radius, really think that people are going to drive down to Deerfield to sit in a fast food restaurant for a burger that is essentially the same as everyone else is serving? They actually pay money for this, have to provide free food, and have to pay people to man the booth. This contest is all of the same people who go to every other event, so nobody is learning anything about their business. Imagine spending the $1000 on real marketing; something that might actually help their business?
One thing about this 'contest' is that the judging is very curious. They call it "chef driven", but there's only one working chef on the judging panel. 2 instructors, 2 guys who blog about burgers and one chef. More sketchy advertising from the Riverwalk Trust. Guys who teach cooking are no more chefs than guys who teach computer programming are computer programmers. If they were any good they'd have good jobs as chefs.
But the big thing about the judging is that it's secret. We can't scrutinize the judging, because the Riverwalk Trust won't release the ballots to the public. What's the big deal? If you think that you're qualified to be a judge, you should be happy to release your ratings for burgers. What's the downside? Will the Burger Beast's credibility be tarnished if he likes a burger that you don't? The only possible reason to not release the ballots is that there is something about it that might raise eyebrows.
Last year I got jerked around by liason Renee Quinn, who is becoming one of the city's biggest sources of phony PR; she runs the annoyingly spammy Last Minute Lauderdale and has morphed into the seemingly bogus Burger Belle; a blogger that doesn't appear to actually have a blog. Her yelp "review" of Grille 401 qualifies as a full fledged advertisement; I've never seen anything from her that was even remotely objective. Long story short, Renee kept promising to get me the ballots for the judging to publish; but in the end it appears that there was never any intention to release them. Last year she offered me VIP tickets, and I declined based on the Riverwalk Trust's position on their judging:
Riverwalk Trust --- like many other organizations (for profit and not for profit) do not give out the details of the Judging
Frankly, I find that statement questionable. I'm not a lawyer, but without open judging, it seems to me that it could inject an element of chance (such as a biased judge) which could transform a "Contest of Skill", which is legal, to something that violates gambling statutes. New statutes passed in April make it illegal for non-profit organizations to engage in games of chance. So the "Awards" that they hand out must all be judged solely on skill. Without open judging and access to ballots, how can it be determined that Awards weren't handed out to friendly vendors in a biased manner? Is there really going to be objective judging on the "Best Burger Joint" award, or are these secondary awards only handed out as a reward for participating? Have all of the judges been to every venue participating? What does Best Burger Joint have to do with this contest?
After Georgi's won it's second burger battle in as many years, I published this article outlining how a seemingly objective contest could be fixed. It's just black helicopter stuff, but it's more fun than the actual Burger Battle.
Originally Published 7/30/11
Let's face it, conspiracy theories can often be more fun than the event, even if they are at the expense of someone's credibility. Most of us have long forgotten about the BurgerBattle, but I was reminded of it the other night and a spontaneous conversation broke out about the coincidence factor of the outcome. It gave me an opportunity to organize my thoughts on the matter.
For those of you out of the loop, Burger Battle is a contest between area restaurants that's been held for the last 2 years on the Lawn Where O'Haras Used To Be. The same place, Georgi's Alibi, has won 2 years in a row, beating out places like Morton's, Capital Grille and Johnny V.
The first consideration is appearance of credibility. Here we have an event that is largely for fun, but like with so many other things here in Fort Lauderdale, at the end of the day you just end up with a bad taste in your mouth. When the same "video/sports" gay bar that was never particularly known for their burgers previously wins 2 years in a row, you have a PR problem. Now if everyone who attended the contest was buzzing about how great Georgi's burgers were, then you might be able to buy into the result. But that wasn't the case. I attended the first BurgerBattle in 2010, and I can attest that the results were a complete surprise to everyone. I interviewed quite a few people who attended the 2011 event, and while obviously people were aware of who won the previous year, there was certainly no consensus that their offering was a clear winner.
So from a pure journalistic standpoint, we certainly have an issue for consideration. When the out-of-shape chick keeps winning the bikini contest, you simply have to question the results. There are 3 possibilities here; coincidence, bad judgement/judging, or the contest is fixed. While it's possible for plain girls to win beauty contests without any funny business being involved, you have to figure out why.
I was going to write this article right after the contest, but I wanted to give Riverwalk Trust a chance to provide the judge's ballots, which is all that's needed to determine which of the 3 possibilities is the case. I had asked the person who managed the judging to release the ballots, but after several "I'll look into it"s, I gave up on asking. Refusal to release the ballots (perhaps they've been shredded?) just adds to the suspicion.
Several judges have sworn that the contest was legit, but that doesn't really matter. Even if everything is done completely right, a contest like this can easily be fixed. They claim that the burgers were tested "blindly", but it's easy enough to tell a particular judge which burger will be from a particular vender. "Psst, Joey, look for the burger with the little milkshake". It's not really that difficult.
Another suspicious note is that there were 8 judges and 16 vendors. Why do you need 8 judges to judge a burger contest? It's easier to steer the results of a contest with more judges. With 8 judges, you only need 1 or 2 judges "on the take". With such a setup, you can have 6 judges blogging about how fair the contest was; and have them be completely wrong. Let me illustrate.
Judge Burger 1 Burger 2 Burger 3 Carl 9 5 5 Jodie 8 6 10 Pete 7 6 8 Shirley 4 8 6 Pedro 10 6 7 Darth 4 10 3 Mandy 7 7 6 Sven 3 10 4 totals 52 58 49
I generated these numbers pretty randomly, with Darth and Sven as the only 2 that were "fixed". With 6 "honest" judges you can be pretty sure that the results between them will be close; everyone has different tastes and with 16 burgers you can expect that most of them are going to be "pretty" good. So there's a central tendency among the truly objective people to rate between 5 and 8. With Sven and Darth both on the take, it would be very difficult for any burger other than Burger 2 to win, unless it was substantially and obviously superior.
The easy way to eliminate this possibility is to disclose the judge's ballots. What's the big problem here? Is the Mayor's food knowledge credibility at risk? There's no expectation of privacy when you judge a burger contest. If you want people to think that you're running a credible contest, you need full transparency.
In the big picture, it doesn't really matter, because winning an "award" in this town is as benign as your Mom telling you how good looking you are. There are so many places claiming to have the "Best Burger" it's almost comical: Gilbert's, Duffy's, Big City Dogs, Jack's, Stop, Le Tub, ROK:BRGR, Five Guys and Charm City Burgers all use the claim of best burger in their advertising.
Next year, if the Riverwalk Trust wants to halt the whispering about the credibility of their events, make the judge's ballots available to the public after the event. Comp the Mayor and his Wife a couple of VIP tickets to avoid insulting them, and find 4 credible food people who aren't going to mind having their ratings publicly exposed. People that have a stake at being considered credible when all is said and done, and who would have to answer to any inconsistencies in their ratings.
I, of course, can't be a judge (not that they'd ever ask), because I'm the only one in this town who is willing to ask the tough questions and to point out the obvious. And what's obvious here is that there's something fishy about BurgerBattle.
