For Your Favorite Place For A Burger With Burger Battles Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Burger Battles contest is and who runs it

A restaurant nominated for this ballot faces a simple question from its own customers: who has the best place for a burger in Central Minnesota? That question is the whole contest. WJON, a radio station broadcasting to the region, puts the vote on its own website and lets listeners decide, with the winner claiming the title of favorite place for a burger. The format is a public vote, not a judge's panel and not a paid entry scheme, so every point on the scoreboard comes from somebody clicking the station's page.

The balloting lives on wjon.com, which matters for two reasons. First, the nominee roster and the rules live in one place, on the station's own domain, not spread across a separate balloting service. Second, the page is under the same masthead as the station's news and promotion content, so the contest doubles as on-air and online coverage for the restaurants in the running. A spot that finishes well gets visibility with exactly the audience that can drive across town for lunch.

The prize side of one edition gave the ballot extra pull. The page told readers they could "win dinner and a show for four from Chanhassen Dinner Theatres", tying a drawing to the vote. For a nominated business, the practical takeaway is that the contest rewards whichever spot can turn its regulars into repeat voters before the deadline arrives.

The dated history of WJON's Burger Battles ballot

The contest has a longer history than most readers guess. Confirmed editions appear in 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026, and WJON's own page describes it plainly: "The annual Burger Battles contest is back, and we want to know your favorite place for a burger!" That is the station calling it annual in its own words, and the year list matches, with a gap around 2020 and 2021 and an unbroken run since 2024.

On timing, the page text carries one dated close: voting shut at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, June 3rd in that edition, and the winner was announced Monday, June 4th. A close at the end of a Sunday night followed by a Monday reveal is a rhythm radio stations like, because the announcement lands in a morning show window. It also suggests the current cycle runs in late spring, though the station has not printed the opening day or the closing day for the newest run in advance; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The station has not published the nominee list in advance, a per-supporter cap beyond the once-per-vote wording, or any separate nomination round dates. Businesses planning a push should therefore rely on the live page alone for the current roster and deadline, and should re-read it at the start of each cycle rather than assuming the last edition's dates still hold.

How a supporter votes in Burger Battles today

The voting mechanic could hardly be simpler. A supporter loads the contest page at wjon.com, reads the question about the best place for a burger in Central Minnesota, picks a spot from the nominees shown, and submits. No payment is named anywhere on the ballot, and the contest runs alongside a drawing that readers could enter from the same page in the edition whose text is held in full.

Two details shape how the vote actually plays out. The first is the station's own line that supporters may "vote as often as once", which sets a pace: one vote per voting action, with repeat votes coming from repeat visits rather than from a single sitting. The second is the closing time published for the past edition, 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, June 3rd, after which the page stopped taking votes and the winner followed the next day. A supporter who means to vote more than once should therefore spread visits across the window instead of waiting for the final night.

The page does not state whether an email address or account sign-in gates repeat voting, and it does not print the per-person rule in full. The safe reading is the one the station publishes: vote once per visit, come back as the page allows, and stop when the published deadline passes. Anyone supporting a specific restaurant should confirm the current closing time on the live page before planning a last-day push.

Where Burger Battles sits among Minnesota's other public votes

Central Minnesota readers who find this ballot are rarely more than a click away from a second burger vote. The Tastiest Cheeseburger in Central Minnesota runs in the same region under a different station, Mix 94.9, and asks a near-identical question about cheeseburgers. A restaurant can appear on both ballots, and its supporters can vote on both, but the two contests answer to different publishers with different deadlines and different rules.

Widen the lens and the state offers a full shelf of best-of ballots. The Best of the Midwest and Minnesota's Best programs cover broad category sweeps across the state, while the Best of the Best Brainerd Lakes Area serves a specific lakes-region readership through its newspaper. Farther out, CommunityVotes Duluth and CommunityVotes Rochester run city-centered ballots on a nominate-then-vote structure.

What makes Burger Battles different is its size and its voice. It is a single-category, single-question vote run by one radio station on its own domain, aimed squarely at a food fight its listeners can argue about on air. That narrowness is a strength for a nominated burger spot: every vote comes from an audience already primed to care about hamburgers, and the winner earns a headline on a station people play in their cars and kitchens, not a line buried in a hundred-category list.

Strengthening support for a nominated burger spot

A restaurant trying to win this ballot has one asset the station has already handed it: the format allows voting as often as once, so steady return visits beat a single announcement. The practical playbook is to put the wjon.com ballot link where regulars already look, on table tents, receipts, the restaurant's social accounts and the counter at the register, and to pair it with a reminder before the published Sunday-night close.

Stay inside the station's rules while doing it. WJON publishes the contest terms on the ballot page itself, and anything that games the vote rather than rallying real supporters risks the station discounting it. Asking every customer once, reminding staff to mention the contest, and posting the link weekly are all straightforward and match what the page permits.

For a business weighing paid support, read the organizer's terms first and review the options on this site's award votes page, remembering that the station's own rules always decide what counts on its ballot.