At PINCHO, we think of Burger Bash as the Oscars of the burger world. It’s a showdown of the greatest in the burger game. You’re competing against local Miami favorites, national powerhouses like Shake Shack, and even Food Network stars. We love that feeling where, for one night on the sands of South Beach, we can all go head-to-head.

When we won our first Burger Bash title at South Beach Wine & Food Festival in 2015, we were only two locations into our journey. We competed with the Croquetesa, a now-legendary croqueta patty burger with cheese, mustard, mayo and pickles that only makes its way back as a menu special when you least expect it.

That win was truly life-changing. The next day, we had lines out the door. Our website almost crashed as we received over 10,000 site visitors in a single day. And to top it off, we received more than 600 franchise requests.

Food Network wrote about our win, and it put PINCHO on the map. We were suddenly getting attention on a national scale. We’d already won several burger awards around town – and we knew that locals loved us – but our Burger Bash win gave us the credibility we’d been hoping for.

We were just getting ready to grow the brand with new locations and start raising capital, so the timing was perfect. When other restaurateurs or fellow burger chain owners would hear we won Burger Bash, they’d do a double take.

Then came our second Burger Bash win in 2019. (We think it’s fair to say we called it when we named our entry the Pipo’s Choice.) Again, we had lines out the door. Sales skyrocketed as everyone in Miami wanted to try the Pipo’s Choice Burger – a sweet and savory combination of Miami flavors, featuring sweet plantain bits, potato sticks, smoked gouda, applewood bacon, grilled onions and guava ketchup. It became such a phenomenon that it has since landed on our permanent menu.

At that point, we knew we’d cemented our Burger Bash legacy by being the only homegrown Miami restaurant brand to win the People’s Choice Award twice. And we know it’s no happy accident.

We take Burger Bash prep seriously around here. It takes us months of back-and-forth development and tasting to land on a Burger Bash-worthy entry. For almost 6 months out of every year, we’re in Burger Bash prep mode planning for the next big showdown. It feels like when you’re in advertising and always working on next year’s Super Bowl commercial.

So what goes into coming up with the next award-winning burger? We don’t compete with the staples you already know and love, like the Perfecto Burger or Fritanga. We try to raise the burger bar ever year. Other upscale restaurant competitors at Burger Bash are competing with $20+ burgers, so we have to bring our A-game.

It’s about more than winning to us. It’s about proving to ourselves that we’re constantly elevating the game. Sometimes a burger idea we have may be delicious – something you’d happily eat every day – but it’s not truly Burger Bash-worthy.

The key for PINCHO is to come up with something new and mind-blowing, while still keeping it fast casual. We don’t have the luxury of using high-end ingredients like bone marrow or caviar the way other Burger Bash competitors do.

We have to be ready to serve our Burger Bash entry at PINCHO the next day (because if we win, we want all of you to be able to try it!). That means keeping it to a price you’d expect from PINCHO and training 200 team members to execute it across all of our restaurants (and we’ve grown to 9 locations since those early days!).

If you’re joining us at the 2021 SOBEWFF Burger Bash this month, we’re excited to give you a taste of our latest game-changing creation. We really think we have another chance at taking home the People’s Choice title again this year – but it’s ultimately your call!