Intro: The 2009-2010 Columbia SC Cheeseburger Crawl

In a break with the normal posts of this blog by just me, I would like to announce a completely new tradition that I am starting up here on my blog - a semi-regular set of posts on my blog dedicated to a search for the best cheeseburger served here in Columbia, SC. This idea is the genesis of one of my co-workers, Flarké, who has taken the very serious duty of showing me all the good places to eat here in the South, including where all the good cheeseburger joints in town are. =)

In making up the list of places to go to, we have laid down three ground rules:

(1) We decided to stick with local, homegrown places that offer cheeseburgers in Columbia only. This excludes all of the chain restaurants (right now, I'm going to say "Sorry!" to Five Guys - I love their burgers and their fries, but it isn't a local place, it's all over the Eastern seaboard, so it was automatically excluded. I'll do another separate post for them in the future).

(2) We are looking for simple unadulterated cheeseburgers at your local hole-in-the-walls, and not your higher-end places. So Motor Supply Co. Bistro, even though you may have a great tasting cheeseburger (even though you serve it with quinoa, not fries, and to that I say, "Seriously!!??") and Mr. Friendly's, sorry, your restaurants are just too nice to get on the list).

(3) Each cheeseburger (with the fries) is rated on a scale of 1-5 (one being your average cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's, and five being the best you've ever eaten), with increments of .5 allowed (as in a rating of 2.5, 3.5, etc.). Everyone has an opportunity to revise their previous ratings based on each new cheeseburger they try.

The group of cheeseburger tasters includes myself and several of my co-workers (with appropriate pseudonyms to hide their all-important day-to-day identities). We will be visiting a whole bunch of cheeseburger places every two weeks or so (every two weeks just to try to stay a little bit healthier), and giving overall ratings to each of the cheeseburgers based on several categories. Hopefully we will eventually be able to declare a winner for the best cheeseburger in Columbia sometime in 2010 (although the list keeps growing...we'll get through them eventually though!).

By the way, a random note: some of these places also serve hot dogs too, which I will be trying on my own, but no ratings on these, though.

That is pretty much it! I'll be tagging each post in this set with a special "Columbia SC Cheeseburger Crawl" tag, in case anyone wants to review them all together. Without further ado, please enjoy the 2009-2010 Columbia Cheeseburger Crawl!