Feb. 3, 2020

After a record number of participating restaurants and votes, Parker’s Bistro has emerged as the winner of the annual Burger Battle organized by Downtown Sioux Falls Inc.

The restaurant’s creation featured a Wagyu patty served with house-made green chili bacon, Havarti, Fresno jelly and a jalapeno popper all on a brioche bun. Parker’s will continue to serve the burger through February.

“It’s a wonderful thing to participate in,” owner Stacy Newcomb-Weiland said. “We haven’t done it for several years. It’s just blown up in the last few years, and I think people are really excited about it. We had so many people come in and just happy to be running around in January, which is unusual. That’s usually a hard month to get people to do a lot. So it really was a wonderful, tremendous thing for Downtown Sioux Falls to do for all the downtown businesses.”

More than 7,700 votes were cast on the burgers. There were 600 uses of the hashtag #BurgerBattle on social media posts, and those diners were eligible for giveaways.

There were 16 restaurants that participated in the Burger Battle this year, which also helped launch the new Passport app for the downtown organization.

More than 3,100 people downloaded the app.

The South Dakota Cattlemen’s Foundation sponsored the event.