GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo.,
Feb. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Last
night, America's most prestigious burger competition brought
together top culinary maestros to battle it out for burger
supremacy and Red Robin's Best of the Bash Award at the Food
Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by FOOD
& WINE's Amstel Light Burger Bash, presented by Pat LaFrieda
Meats and hosted by Rachael Ray.
Chef Brad Halsten of The Burger Dive
located in Billings, MT wowed the
judges' taste buds with the Blackened Sabbath burger, featuring a
craveable combination of blackened spice with bacon, beer battered
onion ring, garlic basil mayo, goat cheese and arugula with
Sriracha. As the winner of the Best of the Bash Award, Chef
Halsten will receive $10,000, and in
the future, his burger may appear on Red Robin's premium burger
menu.
![Chef Brad Halsten of The Burger Dive, Billings MT, won $10,000 and the opportunity to have his burger served at participating Red Robin restaurants nationwide as a limited-time-offer on Red Robin's premium burger menu in the future at the Amstel Light Burger Bash hosted by Rachael Ray during the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Feb. 21, 2014 in Miami Beach, Fla. Chef Brad Halsten of The Burger Dive, Billings MT, won $10,000 and the opportunity to have his burger served at participating Red Robin restaurants nationwide as a limited-time-offer on Red Robin's premium burger menu in the future at the Amstel Light Burger Bash hosted by Rachael Ray during the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Feb. 21, 2014 in Miami Beach, Fla.](http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnvar/20140222/NY69999)
For the second year in a row, all chefs that participated in the
Amstel Light Burger Bash had the opportunity to submit their burger
recipe for Red Robin's Best of the Bash Award. Chef
Robert Irvine, host of Food
Network's Restaurant: Impossible, along with John Schaufelberger, Red Robin's vice president
of brand marketing, and Scott
Weaver, the brand's director of culinary, tasted, judged and
selected the Blackened Sabbath burger as the winner based on
criteria such as creativity, taste and presentation.
"For a burger lover like me, being part of the judging panel for
Red Robin has been a fun and memorable experience," said Best of
the Bash judge Robert Irvine. "I was
thoroughly impressed with the culinary imagination displayed by
each of the chefs who entered the competition, and it definitely
wasn't easy choosing just one winner."
Chef Halsten's Blackened Sabbath burger will serve as the
inspiration behind a new burger on Red Robin's premium burger line
in the future. In 2013, Chef Laurent
Tourondel's Smashed Smoke Burger won Red Robin's Best of the
Bash Award and inspired the Gourmet Burger Authority's first
premium burger offering, the Smoke & Pepper Burger™. Red
Robin's premium burger line, known as Red Robin's Finest, is a line
of handmade, half-pound Black Angus beef burgers with superior
toppings, cheeses and sauces.
"Red Robin has been the 'Gourmet Burger Authority™' for more
than forty years. We take burger innovation very seriously as we
continue to push the culinary boundaries within casual dining,"
said John Schaufelberger, Red
Robin's vice president of brand marketing. "Through our partnership
with the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Red
Robin is able to leverage renowned industry chefs' high-level of
expertise and culinary experience as the inspiration for new burger
creations that our guests will crave."
In addition to presenting the Best of the Bash Award, Red Robin
also served the winning burger from its Golden Robin Contest.
Beginning Nov. 13, Red Robin invited
students from the Florida International
University's (FIU) Chaplin School of Hospitality &
Tourism Management, the beneficiary of all proceeds from the Food
Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, to submit their
original burger recipes. There were 140 entries to the contest
which were then narrowed down to one well-deserved winner.
Derrick Deal was selected as the
winner for his Bubblin' Brown Sugar Bar-B-Que Burger, a delicious
take on a tavern style cheeseburger with southern charm, featuring
brown sugar bacon, grilled red onions, sharp Cheddar cheese,
Heinz® Honey Barbeque Sauce and shredded Romaine lettuce
on a sesame seed bun. In addition to the opportunity to serve
his winning burger at the Amstel Light Burger Bash, Deal also won a
$10,000 scholarship and a chance to
have his burger featured on the Red Robin menu.
For more information about Red Robin and to find a Red
Robin® restaurant location near you, visit
www.redrobin.com.
About Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc. (NASDAQ:
RRGB)
Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc. (www.redrobin.com), a
casual dining restaurant chain founded in 1969 that operates
through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Red Robin International, Inc.,
is the Gourmet Burger Authority™, famous for serving more than two
dozen craveable, high-quality burgers with Bottomless Steak Fries™
in a fun environment that is welcoming to guests of all ages.
In addition to its many burger offerings, Red Robin serves a wide
variety of salads, soups, appetizers, entrees, desserts and its
signature Mad Mixology® Beverages. There are more
than 490 Red Robin® restaurants across the United States and Canada, including those operating under
franchise agreements. Red Robin... YUMMM®! Connect with
Red Robin on Facebook and Twitter.
About Chef Robert
Irvine
With more than 25 years in the culinary profession, there aren't
many places Chef Robert Irvine
hasn't cooked or challenges he hasn't had to cook his way out of.
During his time in the British Royal Navy and in the years that
followed, Robert cooked his way through Europe, the Far East, the Caribbean and the Americas, in hotels, on the
high seas, and even for the Academy Awards. And that was before he
started his career in TV.
As the host of one of the Food Network's highest rated shows,
Restaurant: Impossible, Robert is best known for saving
struggling restaurants across America by assessing and overhauling
the restaurant's weakest spots. In 2013, Robert added a new
challenge to his resume as he mentored and challenged aspiring
chefs as the host of Restaurant Express, a new show on the
Food Network.
Going on its third year, Robert continues to tour his live show,
Robert Irvine LIVE, across the US. Robert also operates two
restaurants in South Carolina,
Robert Irvine's Eat and Robert Irvine's Nosh, and he is the author of
two cookbooks, Mission: Cook! and Impossible to Easy.
Robert previously hosted Food Network's Dinner: Impossible
and Worst Cooks in America.
Visit www.ChefIrvine.com to learn more about Robert Irvine, his TV shows, live shows and
restaurants.
About the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism
Management
Florida International
University's Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism
Management has been recognized as one of the top hospitality
programs in the U.S. Each year, more than 1,400 undergraduate
and graduate students from across the
United States and around the world choose FIU for its
outstanding reputation, advantageous campus locations, expert
faculty, rich curriculum, and fast-track career advantages in the
international hotel, foodservice and tourism industries. In
August 2006, FIU unveiled the first
U.S. School of Hospitality and Tourism in Tianjin, China. The Marriott Tianjin China
Program is FIU's largest international program, with a capacity for
up to 2,000 students. For more information about Florida International University\'s School of
Hospitality and Tourism Management, visit
http://hospitality.fiu.edu/.
![Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.](http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnvar/20120522/NY11686LOGO)
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SOURCE Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc.