Best Burger: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Best Burger contest is and who runs it

Best Burger is a food-focused public vote run by Minnesota's New Country, a Minnesota radio station whose audience knows the brand through its 98.1 signal and its mobile app. The program invites locals to vote for their favorite burger spots, and the station frames it as an annual contest highlighting local eateries, not a one-off promotion.

Voting happens on the station's own domain. There is no outside contest platform involved: supporters vote directly at minnesotasnewcountry.com/vote-favorite-burger-minnesota/, the page the station uses for its favorite-burger voting. That matters for supporters because every rule, date and nominee list comes from the station itself, not from a third-party voting vendor.

Geographically the ballot reaches across Minnesota, with the station's own copy pointing at the top burger spots in Central MN. The station's site sections around the ballot include Food and From Around Central Minnesota, which fits a station serving that listening area while keeping the contest open statewide.

The dated record for Best Burger on Minnesota's New Country

Two editions of Best Burger are confirmed: 2025 and 2026. The station's own 2025 coverage describes the cycle in order: once the nomination window closed, voting began, and the winners for 2025 were revealed on a Sunday. That sequence, nominations first and a public vote second, is the shape the program has shown so far.

The 2026 edition is anchored to February. Minnesota's New Country tells supporters they can cast a vote once per day through February 25, 2026, and that voting closes at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 25. Those are the dated facts the station has printed for the current cycle.

Two things are missing from the station's printed material for 2026: the day-level opening date of the voting window and the dates of any nomination round; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The station also has not published a prize description for the winning burger spot, so supporters and nominees alike should treat the reward as whatever the ballot page announces.

For recurrence beyond 2026, the annual label comes from the station's own wording and from the two confirmed edition years. No schedule for a 2027 edition has been stated anywhere on the station's contest pages, so the next cycle is expected but not yet dated.

How a supporter votes in Best Burger today

Voting in Best Burger takes only a minute. A supporter opens the Best Burger voting page on the station's site, looks over the burger nominees for the current round, picks a favorite, and submits the choice. No account creation is described on the ballot page, and the station's instructions center on one action: cast your vote for your favorite burger spot.

The frequency rule is the part that shapes strategy. The station states that you can cast your vote once per day, every day, through February 25, 2026. That makes Best Burger a daily-return ballot rather than a single-vote poll: a supporter who wants to back the same joint throughout the window comes back each day and votes again.

The deadline is equally plain. Voting closes at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 25, 2026, so the last useful ballot is the one submitted before that afternoon close. After the close, the station moves to announcing results, as it did in 2025 when winners were revealed on a Sunday.

Because the voting page lives on the station's domain, supporters reach it through Minnesota's New Country's normal site navigation or by typing the voting address directly. The station's contest copy asks voters to support local eateries, which is the framing behind the whole program.

How Best Burger sits beside other Minnesota favorite ballots

Minnesota's New Country is not the only organizer running a favorites ballot in the state, and Best Burger has clear neighbours. The closest by subject is the Tastiest Cheeseburger in Central Minnesota, a food ballot from a different station aimed at the same Central MN audience but covering cheeseburgers rather than burgers generally.

Several siblings are broader best-of programs. Minnesota's Best and Best of the Midwest cover many categories at once, while the Best of the Best Brainerd Lakes Area serves a specific lakes-area market. CommunityVotes runs two more: CommunityVotes Duluth and CommunityVotes Rochester, each tied to its own city.

What makes Best Burger different is its narrow focus and its host. It is a single-food-subject ballot on a radio station's own website, not a multi-category readers' choice and not a city-branded community vote. A burger spot nominated here is competing in a program whose entire identity is the burger title, which concentrates supporter attention in a way a general best-of ballot does not.

For a business or a fan comparing options, the practical difference is the daily-vote rule and the February window, both specific to this station's contest rather than shared with the siblings.

Strengthening support for a burger spot in this ballot

The mechanic a nominee works with is fixed by the station: one vote per supporter per day through February 25, 2026, closing at 5 p.m. that Wednesday. That rule rewards campaigns built on daily reminders, not one big push. A burger joint that asks customers to come back tomorrow, and the day after, collects far more ballots under this structure than one that asks once.

On outside help and organized vote gathering for Best Burger, Minnesota's New Country has printed nothing either way, so a nominee planning anything beyond organic fan reminders should read the ballot page and contact the station before acting. The general background on strengthening support is covered in our guide on getting more votes online, and the rules question is addressed on our legality page.

For this program specifically, the honest play is the one the station's own copy invites: rally people who genuinely eat at your counter, give them the voting address, and remind them daily until the 5 p.m. close on February 25.