I thought I was doing pretty good eating more than one hamburger a day during Memphis Flyer’s Burger Week, which ends today, July 26th.
But after talking to Jack Heston, 60, I think I’m burger weak.
I ran into Heston at Grill Grabz food truck in front of the old Steak ‘n Shake on Hack’s Cross Road. I’ve been going around to the different participating restaurants and taking photos of people with their $6.99 burger specials. Heston, who was carrying a copy of the recent Burger Week issue of the Flyer with him, can eat the hamburgers several times a day during Burger Week. “I’ve done four a day,” he says. “This year, only three a day.
“I usually try to get an early lunch, most times an early dinner, and sort of a later dinner.”
And all of them featuring hamburgers.
If it’s his day off like it was that day, Heston says he eats four. “I haven’t eaten more than four in a day. Usually it’s three. It’s sort of hard.”
Heston is a dealer at Horseshoe Tunica. “Craps, usually.”
He makes Instagram posts about the hamburgers he eats during Burger Week. “I try to give a positive spin on all of them.”
Heston had to work the day Burger Week began, so he started the trail the next day at Pimento’s Kitchen & Market.
He then went to Farm Burger Memphis, which featured a hamburger topped with peaches and peppers. Heston describes the burger as “sweet and hot. I’d never had a Serrano pepper before.”
Heston and his buddy, James Griffith, usually hit the Burger Week spots, but Griffith had to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas that weekend. “He’s a nice guy. He can eat five times as much as me.”
Why does Heston like Burger Week so much? “I just think it’s a fun thing to do — go to places you probably have never been to.”
Tenero Cafe and Butcher was a new one for him. “That burger was monstrous. I was flabbergasted. Two patties.”
Heston usually orders more than the Burger Week special. “I almost always get a side or a beer. With a beer and a side I think I can burn off more beer calories than food calories.”
Here are more Burger Week photos taken around town: