Earlier this month, Justin Harper and Zach Etengoff completed one thing beforehand thought not possible: They tried all 63 Burger Week specials.
Within the curiosity of disclosure: Burger Week is a promotional occasion placed on by FW Publishing Occasions, the occasions division of the Scene’s father or mother firm. This 12 months’s lineup featured Burger Week’s widest number of patties but, from established classics to adventurous experiments, from throughout the better Nashville space. What began as a playful suggestion throughout final 12 months’s occasion — that the duo strive each Burger Week burger — turned a actuality this 12 months.
“There was a second, most likely three months in the past, the place we had been like, ‘Are we going to really decide to this?’” says Harper. “However it was a lot enjoyable.”
The pair created a ranked tier system and tracked their progress on their Instagram account (@the_nashville_cut). After Burger week, we spoke with the East Nashville residents, who each work within the native video manufacturing trade, about how they completed their feat. This interview has been edited for size and readability.
What was your course of like?
Etengoff: Fortunately, with us each being freelancers, we simply didn’t settle for any work for the week. I knew that it was going to be a ache within the butt to determine how and the place we’re going to go. So I truly put [the locations] into Claude, and it created nearly a map for us on every day. It sectioned every little thing out. … The objective was 9 burgers a day to place us on observe.
Harper: The worst day was Thursday. We did 13 burgers.
Had been you consuming your entire burgers?
Harper: We did half-burgers, and by half, [I mean] Zach would normally eat two or three bites. I might eat the half, after which perhaps a bit extra, relying on if I favored it.
Etengoff: At Grey & Dudley on our first day, we each had our personal burger proper off the bat. We had been like, “We can’t have our personal burger.” It was going to be dangerous as a result of we had been each already full. It was a fairly hefty burger.
Did you eat any non-burger gadgets?
Harper: The primary day I had little Chobani yogurts, after which we had that full burger, and I used to be nonetheless like, “Dude, I’m so full.” So actually the one factor I had was burgers for the remainder of the week.
Etengoff: Identical right here, simply burgers and some coffees.
Did you ever contemplate giving up?
Harper: No, there was by no means some extent. I believe the one contingency was, “Will we attempt to hit all 63, or can we miss a pair?” However it was all the time a matter of, “We’re going to go all seven days and get as many as we probably can.” … Individuals would have come after us. They had been like, “The place are these evaluations, burger boys?”
How did your tier system for the burgers work?
Etengoff: Our greatest objective was [to reach] folks like us from final 12 months — after we solely had time to do like three or 4 burgers, we couldn’t actually discover precisely what burgers had been popping, so we guessed at it on which of them we thought would look good. We had been simply considering that we may help the individuals who simply need to rapidly get a burger. They will see the S-tier. They know that these are the highest hitters. After which for a number of the people who find themselves attempting a bunch of them, that A-tier can provide them a map for their very own little Burger Week quest.
Was there a novel burger that stood out?
Harper: I believe the one that actually took us essentially the most abruptly was Completely High-quality’s burger as a result of it had that stuffed poblano on it.
Did you land on a shared favourite?
Harper: I believe we [went] forwards and backwards a bit bit with what our favorites had been till we had Stoke Haus on Thursday, and we had been each like, “That is by far one of the best one we had.” It was nuts.
