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Red Robin Gourmet Burgers’ new advertising campaign focuses on burgers while simultaneously promoting its variety. “24 burgers. A million reasons” is the new tagline from Vitro, selected as national creative agency of record in January. Three new 30-second TV spots all feature the same unnamed young woman (at r.) who, like Wendy’s “Red” character, is [...]

The Counter’s Founder Jeff Weinstein says the company’s new fast-casual prototype has the potential to take the brand where it could not otherwise have gone while also freeing the original concept to evolve. The first location for Built Custom Burgers (a play on The Counter’s “Custom Built Burgers” sub-theme) opened last week by the University [...]

Opened in 2008, Blanc Burgers + Bottles was one of the early adopters of the modern burger-bar concept and was the inaugural winner of the BurgerBusiness.com Burger Brackets competition in 2010 (it repeated in 2011; the 2013 winner will be crowned on Monday). That longevity means it has seen the number of upscale burger competitors [...]

The Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery chain’s menu offers what it calls an Old Time Pub Burger that it defines as being “no-nonsense.” Menu copy says the burger is “cooked your way and topped with pickles, mayo and mustard. That’s it. Simple and delicious.” This idea of a “pub burger” has gained popularity, perhaps because [...]

The September Burger of the Month at Atlanta’s Yeah! Burger is a 100% vegetarian-fed lamb burger patty topped with arugula and house-made basil mayo. No longer an “exotic” burger choice, ground lamb is becoming a mainstay on burger-specialty restaurants. If you don’t yet offer one and need an idea of how to dress it up, [...]

Burger lovers around Clifton, N.J., have until Aug. 19 to submit their “Ultimate Burger Recipe” to Zinburger there via its Facebook page. The winning burger will be on the menu for two weeks; its creator gets a $100 gift card. Such promotions have become common through a happy confluence of burger restaurants’ insatiable need for [...]

If you’ve read that a record North American lobster season has severely depressed prices and have wondered what happens to all the lobsters being hauled in, here’s one possibility: At Wendy’s in Japan, the two new high-end limited-time offers (LTOs) are the Lobster Surf & Turf Burger (on the right) and the Premium Caviar & [...]

Chef Bryant Ng received his classical culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. His menu at The Spice Table in Los Angeles is global and elegant but still informal enough to include a killer burger. That may be one reason he is one of 12 recently named “Best New Chefs for 2012” by Food [...]

Coming to Chicago for the NRA Show this weekend? Then you’ll want to visit several of the city’s best burger joints.  You don’t think former President Bill Clinton’s coming just to deliver the keynote address do you? Even if you’re not coming to the Show this year, you’ll want to know what some of the [...]

You can disagree, if you wish, with Midwest Living magazine’s list of the 25 best burgers in the region. The glory of the business is that there are enough great burger joints to let everyone have a different list. But you can’t fault the editors’ efforts. They looked hard. These 25 were culled from 130 [...]

Zach Conine doesn’t. And he’s cool with charging $5 for fries, too. The VP-development for LEV Restaurant Group says the menu for its i♥burgers restaurant that it opened in December 2010 in the ultra toney The Shoppes at The Palazzo hotel/casino is not just fairly priced, it’s the least-expensive dining option in the  complex. LEV [...]

Smashburger is again adding a national specialty burger alongside its menu of customized and locally themed burgers. The Fresh Mex Burger will be offered until April 29. To drive trial, Smashburger has a coupon on its Facebook page that gets users a free entrée with purchase of the Fresh Mex Burger or flanker Fresh Mex [...]

Here at BurgerBusiness.com, restaurant award nominees traditionally are greeted with “Congratulations. But do you make a good burger?” Myopic? Yes; great, isn’t it? So now we ask it of the 29 restaurants honored by the James Beard Foundation as semi-finalists for the 2012 Best New Restaurant award. This may seem an unfair question to put [...]

Last year was a turning point for the burger boom. The pivot is evidenced by the relative absence of burger-menu spots on “best new restaurants of 2011” lists. But contrary to what some industry observers/doubters choose to believe, I don’t think this represents a decline in burger popularity. The list below shows that quality new [...]

New York City-based food and restaurant consultants Baum & Whiteman are courageous enough to admit they were wrong last year in predicting that “gourmet” burgers’ popularity had peaked. But they’re foolish enough to make the same mistake again this year. The mea culpa is down there at No. 15 on the firm’s list of “16 [...]