For The Best Cheeseburger In Grand Junction (kool1079): How Voting Works & How to Win

What the KBKL cheeseburger vote is and who runs it

A restaurant nominated for this ballot faces a specific problem: the result is decided entirely by whoever clicks, on a page most customers will only find if the station or a supporter points them there. Knowing exactly what the ballot is, and who controls it, is the first step to campaigning on it properly.

The programme is called For The Best Cheeseburger In Grand Junction, and it is run by KBKL, a Colorado radio station that broadcasts as kool1079. The ballot sits at a dedicated vote-for-the-best-cheeseburger address under kool1079.com, so the vote is hosted in-house by the station itself. The format is a straightforward public vote: supporters back the Grand Junction cheeseburger they prefer, and the page frames the whole thing around National Cheeseburger Day, telling readers that the day is an obvious excuse to eat a cheeseburger and to vote for the best one in town.

Grand Junction sits on Colorado's Western Slope, and the ballot is explicitly local: the title names the city, and the station's other community ballots cover the same ground, from the best pizza place in the Grand Valley to the best pet groomer and best brewery in Grand Junction. For a nominated burger joint, that means the electorate is the station's own Grand Junction audience, not a statewide list.

Facts at a glance

The confirmed history: which editions ran and when

The confirmed history is longer than most local food ballots can claim. Editions of the cheeseburger vote appear in 2019, 2020 and every year from 2022 through 2026. There is no entry for 2021, so the run has a gap in the middle, but every other year from 2019 onward is accounted for. That makes the ballot a fixture the station brings back rather than a one-off promotion, and the most recent confirmed edition is 2026.

What this history does not settle is the shape of each window. KBKL does not print the precise opening and closing dates for the cheeseburger vote, or any nomination round that might precede it; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The station's own copy anchors the ballot to National Cheeseburger Day, which gives supporters a rough sense of the season, but a day name is not a date range, and the page itself carries no dated phrases.

Two other gaps matter to anyone planning around this ballot. The station publishes no rule on how many votes a single supporter may cast, and no eligibility text appears for the restaurants or the voters. Neither is stated anywhere for this programme, so the current ballot is the final word on both. Treat every planning assumption about the window, the rounds and the limits as something to verify against the live page rather than something already settled.

How a supporter votes on the kool1079 ballot today

The voting action itself is simple, which is exactly why a restaurant's supporters should understand it precisely. The ballot is hosted in-house on kool1079.com, so a supporter starts at the KBKL website and reaches the cheeseburger page directly, with no third-party balloting platform in between. On the page, the station's copy does the persuading for you: it declares that today is National Cheeseburger Day, that you should obviously celebrate by eating a cheeseburger, and that you should vote now for the best cheeseburger in Grand Junction.

From there the supporter picks the Grand Junction cheeseburger they support and files that vote on the page. Because the ballot sits on the KBKL website, the surrounding content is the station's usual mix, with the cheeseburger vote appearing alongside the station's other community ballots for pizza, pet grooming, pumpkin spice lattes and breweries in the same city.

The practical detail a campaign needs is the return rule, and here the page is silent. KBKL prints no statement about whether a supporter may vote once, daily or repeatedly during the window, and no login requirement is described. That silence cuts both ways: it means nobody can promise a supporter that a daily return is allowed, and it means nobody can claim repeat voting is blocked. The only safe instruction to give customers is to read the live ballot, follow whatever it says, and vote the way it permits. A campaign built on the page's actual rules survives; one built on an assumed rule does not.

How this ballot sits beside Colorado's other best-of votes

Grand Junction's cheeseburger ballot is small and hyper-local next to the best-of votes that dominate Colorado's Front Range, and that difference shapes how a restaurant should think about it. The state's larger reader votes include 5280's Top of the Town, Best of Denver from Westword, Best of NOCO in the northern corridor, Best of the Springs, Best of Summit County and Best of the Boat in Steamboat. Each answers to its own publisher and covers a different market.

What makes the KBKL ballot distinct is its narrowness. The title names a single dish in a single city, the electorate is the station's Grand Junction listenership, and the vote runs on the KBKL website rather than a dedicated balloting platform. A burger joint that cannot crack a metro-wide readers' poll may find this ballot far more winnable, because the pool of voters is smaller and more local, and the station actively promotes the vote to that exact audience around National Cheeseburger Day.

The trade-off is infrastructure. Larger Colorado votes tend to publish their rules, windows and category lists openly; KBKL's cheeseburger page does none of that, so a restaurant cannot plan from published rules and must work from the live ballot. For a Western Slope business, though, the calculation usually favours the local ballot: the voters it reaches are the ones who actually walk through the door, and winning it says something to the community that a statewide listing does not.

Strengthening support for your cheeseburger nomination

A Grand Junction restaurant backing its own cheeseburger on the KBKL ballot should work the mechanic the station actually provides. The vote is public and sits at kool1079.com, so every ask can carry the direct link, and the station's own National Cheeseburger Day framing gives you a ready-made hook: ask regulars to celebrate the day by eating your burger and voting for it the same sitting. In-person asks at the counter, table cards and a post on the channels where Grand Junction locals already follow you all convert better than generic appeals, because the electorate is genuinely local.

KBKL publishes no statement about outside help for this ballot, and no per-supporter voting rule either, so do not build a plan on assumptions about either. Whatever the live page says about repeat voting is the rule your campaign must follow. For tactics that work across public ballots of this kind, see how to get more votes online, and check buying award votes if you want the general picture before deciding anything.