Mutt & Jeff’s gets top billing in Burger Battle

Lorain County commissioners declared Mutt & Jeff’s restaurant in Lorain the winner of this year’s Burger Battle.

The announcement came during a series of presentations at the commissioners’ Nov. 14 meeting as Visit Lorain County’s Interim Director Jennifer Kennedy spoke about the results of the recent tourism initiative.

The restaurant, 3700 Oberlin Ave., also won the most creative burger prize for its entry of a French onion burger during this year’s competition, which ran from Oct. 11-28.

There were 14 restaurants battling it out for the title of best burger in the county this year.

Kennedy said the number one thing she heard from participants is that they learned of eateries they’d never heard of before.

“Overall, we’ve sold about 2,100 burgers in this time period, which last year at this time, we sold 1,700,” she said.

The top competing restaurant in terms of burgers sold was Bistro 83, 36033 Westminster Ave. in North Ridgeville, which sold 306 of the sandwiches.

Kennedy said there was one individual who visited 13 of the participating restaurants, while Commissioner Ted Kalo bragged about visiting eight or nine.

In other news, Commissioner Lori Kokoski presented a proclamation to Brandi Schnell, community outreach coordinator for the Lorain County Solid Waste District, declaring Nov. 15 as America Recycles Day.

“America Recycles Day is a month-long awareness campaign from Keep America Beautiful,” Schnell said.

“It centers around engaging individuals to think more about recycling and its impact by signing pledge cards that state that they will learn about what materials are recyclable in their community, act by reducing their amount of personal waste in the next month and sharing this message by encouraging at least one family member or friend to recycle in the upcoming month.”

Schnell said the pledge cards are available at the Lorain County Metro Parks’ Carlisle Visitor Center, 12882 Diagonal Road in LaGrange, until Nov. 20.

She also gave the commissioners a trophy from Keep Ohio Beautiful for Lorain County Pride Day, which is always the third Saturday in May.

Schnell said the county had about 2,000 participants this year despite the weather.

She said the category had the most entries, but Lorain County pulled out the prize.