A burger from a small Orange County restaurant is now officially being called the best in New York state.<\/p>\n
Ben\u2019s Fresh was named the winner of the New York Beef Council\u2019s 2026 \u201cBest NY Burger\u201d competition Wednesday during an event at the New York State Capitol in Albany.<\/p>\n
The restaurant\u2019s \u201cEmpire State of Prime\u201d burger beat out finalists from across the state after anonymous judges traveled to restaurants and scored each burger in person.<\/p>\n
The winning burger features prime beef topped with aged cheddar, espresso-bourbon bacon jam, sweet cherry pepper relish and maple aioli on a pretzel bun. Chef Bobby Geraghty told News 12 the ingredients used on the burger are locally sourced. <\/p>\n
Geraghty said the win was years in the making.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was our fifth year entering,\u201d he said. \u201cFinally. Finally, finally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The restaurant says it previously finished runner-up four times before taking home the title this year.<\/p>\n
Customers at Ben\u2019s Fresh Wednesday said they weren\u2019t surprised by the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen out of 10. Absolutely,\u201d one customer told News 12 after trying the burger.<\/p>\n
The New York Beef Council\u2019s annual competition highlights restaurants across the state serving 100% New York beef burgers.<\/p>\n
Other finalists this year included Ale & Angus in Syracuse, Brewer Union Cafe in Brewerton, Columbus Public House in Sherburne, Illusive in Rensselaer, Matteson Hotel in Ilion, Pound Town Burger Bar in Syracuse, Savoy Taproom in Albany, Shelly\u2019s Deli in Endicott and Tap It Bar & Grill in Rochester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A burger from a small Orange County restaurant is now officially being called the best in New York state. Ben\u2019s Fresh was named the winner of the New York Beef Council\u2019s 2026 \u201cBest NY Burger\u201d competition Wednesday during an event at the New York State Capitol in Albany. The restaurant\u2019s \u201cEmpire State of Prime\u201d burger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[463,464],"class_list":["post-20938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-burger-joints","tag-burger-joint","tag-burger-joints"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117207029754738974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}