The topic of food challenges came up in lunch conversation this week.
I suggested to friends, including the esteemed Toph Whisnant, that WacoFork should stage some sort of "Burger Wars." Maybe it was because this discussion took place the day that Whisnant and Jose Zuniga engaged in gorging themselves with multiple double-double burgers. Whisnant countered that I should take a Waco burger challenge of eating a different Waco restaurant burger every hour on the hour from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
This will not happen. My heart takes enough abuse between my usual diet and Texas Tech Red Raider football.
However, it made us think about food challenges and if any existed in Waco.
As luck would have it, I found two of them while doing reconnaissance on Friday morning. Two burger joints, located less than a mile from each other in Lacy Lakeview, each issue a burger challenge to their customers.
Dave's Burger Barn presents the "Zipper Ripper Challenge." The burger-eater is challenged to consume five layers of burger, bacon and cheese along with a pound of fries or tots and a drink in 12 minutes. If the burger-eater succeeds, he or she is rewarded with a free meal, a T-shirt and his or her picture on the Wall of Fame. If the burger-eater fails, he or she pays $14.95 for the food and makes the Wall of Shame. There are way more pictures on the Wall of Shame than the Wall of Fame.
Meanwhile, just on the other side of I-35, Burgers Galore offers customers the chance to challenge "The Beast," which is three pounds of cheese-burger monstrosity. If the burger-eater succeeds, he or she wins bragging rights, a free meal on the next visit and free drinks for life. Photos of successful burger-eaters adorn the walls of Bugers Galore along with the type of Beast they challenged (Beasts come in different flavors) and the time it took them to win the battle.
So my question is this: who's up for it? I'll happily buy lunch for the first taker at each restaurant, provided that we can use the occasion to produce a blog and, possibly, a video.
