On Tuesday, The Iowa Cattlemen’s Association (ICA) and the Iowa Beef Industry Council (IBIC) announced the winner of the 2018 Iowa’s Best Burger : Café Beaudelaire in Ames, Iowa.
“We are excited to kick off May Beef Month by awarding Café Beaudelaire with the title of the Best Burger in Iowa,” says Brooke German, Director of Marketing for IBIC. The Brazilian-inspired restaurant serves a hand-pattied burger, and the judges noted that the taste and quality of the burger is outstanding and worth a drive to have it again. ”
Café B, as it is called by locals in the area, is located in the heart of Iowa State University’s campus-town and serves food with a Latin flavor to Ames’ temporary student population and permanent residents.
The restaurant has been in business for 28 years, and over that time, they have tried several different renditions of this now-famous burger. The final result is a simple combination of salt, pepper and oregano on a hand-made patty of Certified Angus Beef. Together with a toasted bun and a variety of toppings, the result has been proclaimed as nothing short of amazing.
Iowa has nearly 30,000 beef producers and is 4th in the nation for cattle on feed.
The designation as Iowa’s Best Burger comes after a two-phase competition. The first phase is all based on votes from the public. For a month, burger lovers went online and voted for their favorite Iowa burger, submitting nearly 10,000 votes representing around 700 restaurants. At the end of the month, the ten restaurants with the most votes are declared the “Top 10.”
From there, anonymous judges visited each of the restaurants, focusing on the burger patties and scoring them based on taste, doneness and presentation.
