MERIDEN — The aromatic smoke rising into the air can mean only one thing: The Upper Valley has chosen its favorite burger.
Poor Thom’s Tavern in Meriden has won the second annual Upper Valley Burger Battle. The 10-year-old restaurant’s Rise and Shine Burger, a 6-ounce patty topped with a hash brown, an over easy egg, ham and Hollandaise sauce on a toasted bun, bested burgers from 12 other area restaurants.
While the restaurant received a trophy to display and professional photographs of its winning burger, it also received what the battle is meant to provide, a boost in the quiet, dark month of February.
“We actually had a great month,” Thomas Lappin, the restaurant’s namesake owner, said Tuesday. December and January had been slow, but he noticed more new faces in the restaurant last month. Lappin tends bar, a restaurant’s chief observation post.
To win the contest “feels great,” he added. “It’s a team effort.”
Poor Thom’s entered last year’s battle with a shaved prime rib sandwich. For this year, Caitlyn Merrihew, the front-of-house manager, suggested a breakfast theme and chef Caleb Dumont-Willey “figured out how to execute it,” Lappin said.
Harpoon Brewery won last year’s battle with a burger that featured bacon, argula and roasted red peppers.
Overall, “it’s good to have people coming out to support the restaurant,” Lappin said. “You’re not making a million dollars in the restaurant business.” The burger battle offers not just a busier February but some much needed recognition. Meriden is a bit off the beaten path, too, which means diners had to make an effort to sample the Poor Thom’s burger.
This year, patrons cast 911 votes for their favorite burgers, Gordon Boddington, marketing manager of the Upper Valley Business Alliance, said Tuesday. That’s about the same number as last year.
“We heard overall that it did increase traffic, and that people came out who had not come before,” Boddington said. The business alliance, which organizes and promotes the burger battle, is still waiting on solid numbers for the increase in restaurant visits attributable to the month-long contest.
At Poor Thom’s the winning burger will remain a menu item, but not every night.
“We’re going to run it as a special here and there,” Lappin said, “because it’s pretty complicated to turn out.”