Last week we published the results of our March Madness hamburger tournament. The idea was to take a field of eight restaurants and match them up head-to-head in a bracket to determine the best burger spot in Anchorage.
Long Branch Saloon walked away with the championship, and readers responded this past week by casting votes for their own favorite burger joints. While the fight was fierce, the Branch finished a distant fourth place, earning just over half as many votes as readers' choice winner Arctic Roadrunner.
As stated in the breakdown of the field of eight last week, we knew the Roadrunner was the team with the home court advantage, and that popularity barely edged out Tommy's Burger Spot.
Of the 720 votes cast, Arctic Roadrunner pulled just over 18 percent of the vote with 135, while Tommy's trailed close behind with 124. Club Paris finished third with 86 votes. Long Branch had 76, followed closely by Lucky Wishbone with 70. Wee B's took way 49 votes, which still would have been enough to put away any would-be contenders not chosen by the selection committee.
Burger Cache, on the other hand, must have pulled off an upset in its conference tournament to earn an automatic bid, garnering just 5 votes. The top vote-getter not included in our elite eight was White Spot Cafe with 21. Other establishments that could have knocked off Burger Cache: Bear Tooth, Burger Jim's, F Street, Glacier Brewhouse, Peanut Farm Spenard Roadhouse and barnstorming franchise Red Robin.
If you apply the votes from the reader poll to the matchups in our bracket, Arctic Roadrunner would replace Kriner's Diner in the final four, with Tommy's and Roadrunner providing the closest matchup in the semifinal. And much like last Monday's Kentucky/Kansas game, the championship was never much in question after that, with Arctic Roadrunner in control over Club Paris from the opening tip off.
By Matt Sullivan
Anchorage Daily News