After being celebrated for having the best burger in the state, beating out 63 other restaurants, bars and pubs, Talley’s Log Cabin in northern Michigan saw a weekend full of customers who came to see what the hype was all about.
The Detroit News announced the win of its 2026 Burger Bracket on April 9.
Owner Tyler Smith said the restaurant, about 20 miles east of Interstate 75 and about a 30-minute drive from Gaylord, saw double its burger sales over the weekend.
“It’s usually a slow season … Thursday, Friday, Saturday were all huge for us,” Smith said. “April’s usually pretty snow because of the spring weather. … We probably doubled our burger sales that we were expecting to do.”
Winning came with a lot of buzz. Literally.
“My phone starting dinging at 3 a.m. (PDT). People were texting me ‘Congratulations,’ which was really cool, obviously, so I turned my phone on silent and woke up to 97 text messages at 6 a.m. local time,” Smith said.
The burger comes with or without a slice of American cheese, plus lettuce, tomato and pickles on a sesame seed bun.
Manager Matt Miller said new customers came as far as Livonia, Dearborn and Ohio to try the sandwich.
“That was the No. 1 comment they made all weekend: ‘We read the article in the newspaper and we drove 3 1/2 hours, 4 hours just to try this world-famous burger,'” Miller said. “It’s impressive to make that kind of travel and come all this way for a burger that got recommended through a newspaper.
“They said it was worth the drive from every person I spoke to so far. They said it was absolutely living up to the hype, one of the best burgers they’ve had throughout the country,” Miller said.
mjohnson@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan’s ‘best burger’ draws eager customers
Reporting by Myesha Johnson, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
