Sink Your Teeth into the Sauk Rapids Rice DECA Burger Battle Finalists

(KNSI) – The semifinalists have been selected for the inaugural Sauk Rapids-Rice High School DECA Burger Battle. Now it’s your turn to taste them.

The students teamed up with Molitor’s Quarry Grill & Bar for the March Madness-inspired event. Over 100 students devised 50 possible burger combos before whittling them down to 16 contenders. The brackets have been paired from there to eight, and now the final four advancing.

They are the Mighty Mac Meltdown which is a burger layered with creamy buffalo mac and cheese sprinkled with bacon bits and parmesan cheese. The Egg-cellent Maple Burger is for those who love breakfast any time. The item features the sweet savory combo of a maple syrup coated patty topped with the morning staples of crispy hash browns, smoky bacon and eggs prepared to your liking, all laid on a fluffy cinnamon egg wash bun. The Nacho-licious Beefy Delight is for those who can’t decide between tacos and a burger. The taco seasoned patty is topped with gooey nacho cheese, fresh diced tomatoes, crushed tortilla chips, jalapeños, and sour cream with a side of limes and black olives. Pickles have been all the rage the last couple of years, and the Pickle-icious Bacon Bomb is cashing in on the trend. The burger is topped with fried pickles, sauteéd onions, swiss cheese and bacon with a smear of cream cheese.

You can taste and rate the four finalists from January 16th to the 18th at Molitor’s. The winners will move to the championship round from January 23rd to the 25th. The champion burger will combine social media votes and restaurant sales.

Senior Shawn Pilon says the winning burger will be on the Molitor’s regular menu for “a minimum of a year. That winning team will be rewarded with merchandise and a gift card.”

DECA Advisor Kayla Schlichting told KNSI News the project is also about making a difference locally. “And so this project specifically is all about community giving. The foundation they selected was Tanner’s Team Foundation in Sauk Rapids; 50% of the proceeds will go back to Tanner’s team.”

DECA senior Abigail Davis says the experience has been all-encompassing. “When we started the project, we did an overall lesson on how you price things out in the restaurant industry. And just key factors like that. And so when it comes to those kinds of things, we want to be able to teach on all aspects finances, profit margins, advertising, product display, all stuff like that.”

Davis hopes this assignment sparks interest and gets more people to join the group. “A big part of this is we want to increase engagement within our chapter in our school overall. So, anything to really excite younger students and to especially drive our membership in DECA, that was kind of the key goal for all of this and really what inspired us.”

The organization hopes to make this a recurring lesson plan.

DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) is an association of marketing students that encourages the development of business and leadership skills through academic conferences and competitions. The school’s club is the largest in Minnesota, with around 220 participants.

For more information, click here.

___