For the eighth straight year, October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee.com, presented by Locavore, the newest restaurant at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, delectable features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food, as well as the winners of our "Best of Dining 2014."
Milwaukee, you are just filled with surprises this year.
Yesterday, it was Benji's taking the best breakfast/brunch crown over three-time defending champion Blue's Egg. Now today, it's an even bigger upset, with Sobelman's exceptionally long winning streak as Milwaukee's pick for best burger – one that's gone on since 2006 – coming to a close. The burger that knocked the former burger behemoth off its first place spot?
Kopp's is a Milwaukee institution, with over 60 years of shelling out custard and burgers under its belt and three constantly hopping locations. Usually, the best dessert category (and the best custard category before it was folded into best desserts last year) is where Kopp's dominates, but this year, in a rare upset, Kopp's jumbo burgers took the burger crown. Even more shocking: It wasn't really close. Kopp's claimed the title by almost 600 votes.
As for the rest of the competitors, it was essentially a two-burger race for the title, seeing that – other than Sobelman's and Kopp's – no other burger place cracked 1,000 votes, nor was anyone else particularly close.
Still, Oscar's Pub & Grill scored enough votes to snag the third place title – and thanks to its legendary Big "O" burger, it also managed to claim the honor of editors' choice. Meanwhile, last year's runner up AJ Bombers fell to a respectable fourth place finish, and Stack*d landed back in fifth place, the position it has called home for the past three years.
If the rest of the best of dining poll results are as surprising as these first few awards, it's safe to say that we're in for a deliciously entertaining October.
OnMilwaukee.com editors' choice: Oscar's Pub & Grill
Runners up:
2. Sobelman's
3. Oscar's Pub & Grill
4. AJ Bombers
5. Stack'd
