The second annual Burgerfest took place at náměstí Míru this weekend and was a huge success for almost everyone involved. Thousands of burgers and drinks were consumed by the hordes of visitors who had travelled from near and far to be part of the festivities.
With each of the 16 food stalls serving three or more types of burger, that meant there were at least 50 different options to try for anyone with the money and stomach for it. However, you would have had to spend a long time queuing at all the stands to get through that many. By four o’clock on Saturday afternoon three of the restaurants had already sold out of meat due to the popularity of the event, and were having to order more in for Sunday.
It was busy from the 11 o’clock start on Saturday as people arrived to have burgers for their breakfast, before in the early afternoon it got insanely busy, with people having to queue for up to an hour at some stalls. This was because the burgers were good quality, made from fresh ingredients and the stalls only had room for three or four workers at a time. Even when it started to rain few people left and were willing to wait for their burgers that were, for the most part, worth it.
There were drinks on sale from a few other stands at affordable prices, from the Jack Daniels stand to Hoffa Bar with their cocktails and of course three or four places serving a range of excellent Czech beer. The live music started mid-afternoon on Saturday with Replay, who covered a mixture of classic songs and eventually managed to make the rain stop. Entertaining those waiting in line for their food as well as anyone who was devouring their burgers while were soaking in the atmosphere, the music from all the bands throughout the weekend really helped bring the party spirit.
Across the weekend everyone who bought a burger had the opportunity to pick up a voting card, rate it out of five stars, and then put it in a ballot box in front of the stage. Anyone hoping to try a burger from every restaurant will have been disappointed as unless they got there at 11am each day and had a massive appetite it will have been an almost impossible task (but probably better for their health). At four o’clock on Sunday the winner of the best quality burger, as voted for by the public, was announced as Bejzment (jury choice) and Restaurant Zephyr (peoples choice).
The main complaint from people was about the length of the queues and how little room there was to walk round at times, but people were still willing to wait in line for their burgers. Of course the organisers will have learnt from this experience and hopefully next year if they have a similar number of restaurants take part they will find a larger location. Other than that Burgerfest did what it said on the tin, sold a lot of good burgers and drinks while creating a fun atmosphere for everyone. If it could just not rain next year, that would be great too!
