Fine Dining - Septemburger Semi-Finals & Finals

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

It's here! The finale of the 2025 Septemburger tournament pits Wendy's against Dairy Queen and Carl's Jr. against A&W. Who will make it to the finals, and more importantly: who will take home the ability to proclaim themselves the best burger chain of the 2025 Septemburger field? I'm joined once again by filmmaker Tyler Eaton to cover Dairy Queen, comedian and author Ali Gordon to chat Wendy's, one of my best friends Herbert Amaya to review A&W, and composer James McEnelly to eat Carl's Jr. They also humor me and once again embody the chains they're helping me review to trash talk one another. 2nd Round: Wendy's (#1 seed) Baconator vs. Dairy Queen (#5 seed) Loaded A1 Stackburger Carl's Jr. (#3 seed) Western Bacon Burger vs. A&W (#7 seed) BBQ Bacon Crunch Burger Finals: ??? vs. ???

Welcome to Fine Dining. Septemberger concludes today, but if you're not watching this on Patreon, it's technically already Octoberger. We've got two semifinal matchups, pitting Wendy's against Dairy Queen and Carl's Jr. against A&W. Four chains remain, but who will feel the pain and who will steer this train? And will any of the matches go against the grain? All of that will be answered. restaurant chains, which means we'll be talking about six burgers before crowning the 2025 Septemberger champion. Who will take their rightful place next to such prestigious names as 2023's winner Outback Steakhouse and 2024? We're out of round one so the basic burgers can be left behind in flavor of more adventurous options. Wendy's world-famous

Baconator will take on Dairy Queen's A1 Steakhouse burger. Carl's Jr. brings the Western Bacon Burger while A&W matches it with the barbecue bacon crunch burger. The time to talk turkey is not now. Let's talk beef. It's time. Hit the theme song. Eight burgers and die, one burger leaves, take a look at the mena, nothing for briefs, a fire up that grill, and fry up your soul, we're looking for something that's better than mediocre. It's time for a further September, yes, it's time for the test, there can only one nectar of a furnace September.

Yeah, we're looking for some perfection of a bun. Just be the best burger that you can be. Somewhere between heaven and ecstasy. I can see that hunger it's in your life. You're going for glory with a side of the fright. It's Susset Burger! All the brackets have been submitted, so a special thank you to everyone who played along

at home. If you guessed the winner of the whole tournament, you'll be entered into a drawing for the grand prize. I will review any American chain restaurant you choose in my upcoming fourth season of the show as long as I haven't done it before. And on top of that, I'll write and perform a rap song about you or any food or restaurant-related topic and put it in the podcast. Without further ado, let's get into the matchups. After waltzing past, Jack in the box in the first round, we've got Wendy's, who's Dave's single, beat the sourdough Jack by a hefty margin.

The number one seed knocked out the number eight seed with ease. So Wendy's compared to Jack, Wendy's is here. Their opponent, the other feminine energy in the tournament, Dairy Queen, who just barely upset Sonic Drive-in in the first round. The DQ Bacon Deluxe scored 5.11 to the Sonic Smashers 5.04. Can the Queen bring the heat in the second round? Technically no, as their flamethrower burger was their best offering and will only be looked at in round three if they advanced to the finals.

But the A1 Steakhouse Burger is up against the Baconator. So let's go first to Dairy Queen discussion. All right, so the round two burger for Dairy Queen, which advanced in the first round, is the double-loaded A-1 burger. you said there was one burger you really liked it wasn't this one okay same this one I was disappointed by this one I was disappointed by it was very dry so this was a burger that it was called the double loaded A1 burger it came with A1 sauce it came with an onion ring and if this were a cheeseburger competition it would have had cheese on it and then it was a double meat burger and it was a double meat burger and it was so dry. My first note is it needed more sauce. It just was not lubricated enough.

That or it wasn't dispersed well enough, but it may have been concentrated in the center, but my first bite, you know, you bite from the sides. That's where you start on a burger. And disappointment. It had nothing. So sorry. It wasn't loaded. And then I thought that the tang, well, one might argue that cheese is what loads it.

So that one's kind of on me. Okay. Um, but the, uh, what you'm gonna, oh, the, the, the A1 sauce, maybe I'm just not an A1. I don't, I don't eat steak with steak sauce like, like, not an A1 guy. Well, I'm, I'm, I eat steak with its own natural, like, seasonings and juices and, you know, stuff like that. Keep it real, you know, it doesn't need much more. And it's beautiful. I thought that it was like, it was a little too sweet. It was like tangy and had had a little bit too much sweetness that I felt was out of place in this. burger i didn't like the onion ring being on it it was too much there was too much happening and i wrote down it was trying too hard i love an onion ring on a burger but it needs to be like the right level of crispiness it needs honestly instead of onion ring we've already figured it out go onion strings i agree i went 4.18 wow i uh 3.5 3.5 yeah not a fan not a fan i like the the standard one much more than this.

Yeah. And that one wasn't great. When we put it all together, the double-loaded A1 burger from Dairy Queen gets a 3.84. Good math, Michael. Where do you get this stuff? Shut your dick. What was the line?

I want to, like, shoot your urethra into your... Oh, from mysterious ways. Jeez. I hope, yeah, something about an AK-47. I hope she shoots... I hope it goes into your re-thru into your blood hole or something. Yeah, yeah. Improv from Alyssa Sabo. Star of Mysterious Ways coming soon.

All right. Well, we'll see if Dairy Queen advances to the finals. I'm not feeling great about it, but one more. One more. Oh, uh-oh. Hold on. The Queen is champing at the bit. She's champing.

She's champing. Let's give Dairy Queen a chance to say their piece on Wendy's. Wipe that smile off your face, Wendy's. Because the queen of dairy is about to make you look as square as your burger patties. Get off the grill, you prepubescent youngling, and back to the playground. Or the queen is going to have to start enforcing some child labor laws. Put on some SPF 100, you red-headed child. Because this September, you're about to get cooked.

Wendy, do you have a rebuttal? Dairy Queen, who died and made you wrong? royalty. Clearly something, because it always smells like something crawled up your ass and died when I go into a dairy queen. What the fuck are you cleaning those ice cream machines with? This is a genuine question, because I have to be honest, I think you have some of the best ice cream in the nation, but the smell alarms me. Also, there used to be cotton candy crunchy pieces in the cotton candy blizzard, and the last time I went in, it was sprinkles, and that is not the fantasy. Change it back, bitch. Wendy's out.

Okay, Wendy, put a quarter in the swear jar. Maybe you'll be a little calmer in discussion form. Let's jump to our dissection of The Baconator. All right, so next up is our second round burger, the Baconator. This is going to go up against Dairy Queen's double-loaded A-1 burger, which was the one dud, I would say I had at Dairy Queen. Their first round burger was enough to get them into the second round. They beat Sonic in round one. This one, we weren't really feeling as much, but they did come back strong with a good third round burger.

Okay. So this is going to come down to can the baconator beat Dairy Queen's admittedly. Not so great. Now, it's a shame because I love, I know this sounds so. You love A1? I love A1. Yeah. I'm not saying that it has to go on every single.

steak in the world. Yeah, yeah. But I do think A1 just as a sauce. I don't think that burger used it well. Yeah. I'll say that's disappointing. But the Baconator. This was just four ingredients.

This was meat bun, bacon, and mayo. Right. Nothing else because we got no cheese. I think there would have been ketchup on it. I'm not certain. I think there might have been. Because usually with mayo, you get ketchup because it kind of forms that fry sauce mixture. Yeah, that ketchup mayo thing, yeah.

Again, like I said this with ketchup. I am not fully anti-catchup. I am not like, I won't eat ketchup in anything, on anything, whatever. Yeah. I just find that the ratio of most restaurants, it does not get ketchup right for me. Yeah. Like, it's always just all I taste is ketchup. If I, you know, if this was not a fast food place and it was like a restaurant, I might be able to be like, can you put just the whisper of ketchup on this?

Do what I mean? Just put a little in your mouth and just kind of spit it out. But like then, which is what they would do. if you ask for somebody to do that at a fast food place. Do what I mean? So, like, I have learned that, like, just don't ask for ketchup at a fast food place. You're not going to get the ratio you want. And don't ask these people to, like, slow down the line to be like, she said a whisper.

She said a whisper of ketchup. And they have to pull out their measuring book and they're like, this cup, is this a whisper? Which is a whisper. So, yeah, we both thought this was a little dry. Yes. But also, we acknowledge that that might not be a completely fair read of the situation. But I'm also going to say this, it still wasn't bad. No, certainly not that.

And I feel like Baconator is such an accurate name. And I say that because the flavor of the bacon was so prominent, which I'm not used to from fast food. I'm used to them giving super thin bacon that's like borderline flavorless somehow. And also like the softest, most softest. flaccid bacon. I hate that. But the bacon on the BLT like chicken was fantastic. And the bacon here was fantastic too. It was multiple layers too. They put it on top and they put it between the patties. So they gave you a good dispersion of bacon. I just, I was into it. Yeah. Enough. Enough. I was into it enough. I went 6.1 on the Baconator. It was solidly good. I think I did 5.75. 5.75. 5.7.5. So

when you put my score with your score, the Baconator in round two of September Ger gets a 5.93, which is plenty. That beats the double-loaded A1 Burger by over two full points. Oh, wow. It scored a 3.8. Oh, then people thought, you thought it was bad. It wasn't great. Damn. Yeah.

All right. Way to go Wendy's. Wendy's advancing to the finals of the Septemberger tournament. And there you have it. The top dog continues rolling through the competition, the number one seed for a reason. Can anyone stop them? There's one more matchup before we even know who Wendy's will spar with in the finals. So let's meet our competition.

Having so narrowly upset the number two seed cookout in the first round, our number seven seed is A&W, more famous for their root beer than anything else. The Papa Burger beat the cookout style burger by one one hundredth of a point, in the upset of the tournament but will the orange and brown be able to take down the number three seed as well their burger offerings here are very similar with a and w's barbecue bacon crunch burger going against carls junior the western bacon burger has the same idea as what a and w is putting forth the superstar burger in round one had a pretty easy time wrestling arctic circles black angus burger into submission let's hear from the underdog first

Okay, continuing us on with the round two burger for A&W, and that burger is the double barbecue bacon crunch burger. This had bacon, barbecue sauce, lettuce, onion crispy's, double patties on just kind of a standard bun, and these little onion Krispies, they were good, but the real star was some hidden element of sweet. that we couldn't identify. Yeah. You thought it might be in the barbecue sauce? Yeah. You know, there was a kind of a really, you would get hints of cinnamon in the burger. And yeah, and like I said, I thought it was the sauce.

You said it might have been the bacon. I think the bacon was like candied or caramelized or something like that. Which makes sense, if that's the case. But regardless, that cinnamon flavor really, I felt added. It elevated it to the next level. Yeah, it really did. Yeah. And obviously, you know, cinnamon isn't necessarily a flavor you expect in a burger, but in this case, it worked.

Yeah. I had this as my highest scoring of the A&W burgers that said it still didn't crack into the sevens for me. I gave it a 6.51 out of 10. I thought those was a solidly good burger. So, yeah, my score for the bacon burger here is 6.87. So when you average a 6.51 with a 6.87, you get a 6.69. Nice. That'll be it for A&W.

Let's see what their competition puts up. Can A&W be your Septemberger 2025 champion? Stay tuned. Okay. And that's the A&W discussion. And of course, A&W's got to talk. some trash so let's hear it wow congrats carl's junior for winning and your first round matchup but guess what now you've made it the second round and you're playing with the big boys

especially the biggest boy a and w bitch so you know what you want to know what a and w stands for buddy a stands for ass and woppin which is exactly what we're going to do to you this round so prepare to get eaten alive and also one more thing about your name You know what your name actually stands for? You're like a hot Carl. You want to know what that is? It's gross. It's shitty and it's unnecessary.

And just like a hot Carl, you're overpriced. So I'm going to wipe you away like shit off my chest. Hey, Carl, are you going to let him speak to you that way? Ha ha! It is I. L.U. Hodel, Carl. And I am back, baby, and I hear I'm going up against A&W.

What does that stand for? Ass and wipe? Well, it's going to be an ass whooping. All right? I hear that you only won by one one hundredth of a point last time. So this is going to be no contest. I'm going straight for the jugular. Barbecue Bacon Crunch Burger?

You copying me? You're obsessed with me. All right. I'll see you out there. And it's going to be, you're not even going to see me coming. Just like... Okay, Carl's Jr., I think it's time we start talking about your Western Bacon Burger, shall we? Okay, Carl's Jr. has advanced it trounced past Arctic Circle, well-earned, to get to the second round, the semifinals of the Septemberger 2025 tournament, and in round two, we've got their Western Bacon.

barbecue burger now this thing has onion rings on it it has bacon it has barbecue sauce and it's got those charbroiled patties over a sesame seed bun right yeah i think so great that's pretty standard if it didn't i'm lying that would be like i would actually be a little shocked if it didn't yeah i would feel like mandela affected yeah like i swear they had them the sesame seeds yeah we've never heard we've never heard of these They're not even a thing. They don't exist. They don't exist. Yeah, it's like a Twilight Zone episode, but like a really bad one.

You get that, the Bram sound from inception. What have you lived in a world without sesame seeds? It's a pretty bad impression. Of, I can't remember his name, the guy who hosts it. All right, hold on. Host of Twilight Zone is Jeffrey Serling. No, it's not. That's not a name I've ever heard before.

Oh, wait. No, Rod Serling. I don't know why it gave me. It gave me his nephew. Oh. For some reason. Sirling or Sterling? Serling.

S-E-R-L-I-N-G. No, it's not. That's not real. So that was my... Rod Serling does sound right, though. Yeah. Okay. Great.

Well, thank God we got out of the wild tangent. Yeah, exactly. What did you think of the Western? bacon barbecue burger uh well so i might be you know sort of in the minority about this i'm not a huge like western barbecue burger guy and it's my go to yeah it's i remember you saying that while we were eating um i i enjoyed it i still think it's an above average burger but i personally ranked it uh lower than the famous star so for something that is my go to this was like quite a bit lower for me um it wasn't bad it wasn't bad it was still above

average it was still a good burger yeah but uh this wouldn't be my default now at carls i don't think um it felt a little dry okay i didn't get that or like hollow like there there wasn't like a richness to the bite i there wasn't well balanced it were also stuffed i really couldn't tell it was just a it was a fine mush but a tasty mush um yeah i i thought it was uh i put that it was a step back from the other one and won't be my go to anymore I went 6.49 out of 10. I went 6.69. Nice.

Yeah. I chose that number for no particular reason. A juvenile joke. So the Western Barbecue Bacon Burger gets a 6.59. I want to get into a philosophical discussion about onion rings on burgers. Okay. Too much or good? that's a good question because like it felt like too much on this one i always like the idea

of it and then every time i have it i'm like i'm a piece of shit afterwards i i like onion rings a lot uh i i think part of the fun of onion rings is they're there they're being finger food right yeah you know like like a fry sort of uh eating experience so to have them on a on a burger feels a little indulgent, but so is going to a fast food restaurant. So like, if not there, where? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think maybe it was,

it was a little too much on this one. But it did add a little something, you know? I think the, the healthy compromise, healthy is the wrong word, but the way islands does it, the island reds where they're like onion strings. Like, they're like deep fried onion strings.

So they're not really bread. They're just like the onion itself kind of like deep fried and I love those. Okay. I think, I mean, maybe they're a little breaded. I don't know. I'm not an expert on like the food process. Don't quote me. Right.

But have you had those? I don't know. I've been to islands before. You've had onion strings, right, as a topping on a burger. If I have, I don't remember. Interesting. Yeah. I would love to.

That sounds good. It's lighter. It doesn't hold as much grease. Yeah. I think that was the main thing about all of the stuff that we had today, which was like, man, that's a lot of grease, you know, a little too much. Freaking wow. A&W beat cookout by one one hundredth of a point in the first round and beats Carl's Jr. by one tenth of a point in the second. No wasted motion here, but A&W is headed to the finals to take on the square paddied behemoth, Wendy.

From the Papa Burger to the Barbecue Bacon Crunch burger, we will now get the best offering from A&W, the highest scoring burger from our meal there. The number seven seed will be bringing its biggest gun, the double mushroom onion melt. And while many expected Wendy's to bring the Baconator into round three after its more standard Dave's single in the first round, that actually was not its highest scoring burger.

No, that distinction belongs to the double-stained. stack. So we've got a fancy offering from A&W going up against Wendy's discount offering that brings it all back to basics. What will win it all? The bells and whistles or the fundamentals. Before we could possibly find out the answer to that, let's allow our competitors to go in on each other. Knock knock. Who's there? A&W? Well, you might as well not have even knocked because I don't know who the fuck you are. Nobody knows what A&W is. Nobody knows what A&W is. except for the root beer. And the root beer is good, but your burgers are trash.

Look at your sad little mascot. Look at this sad little guy. What is it? A bear? A. and Bever? What does A&W even stand for? Aw, and wham! Because you're going to get beat by a little girl.

You think that you've got a leg to stand on? That you can beat Wendy's? You could beat a little girl? Sorry, hold on. Breaking news. This just in. A&W beats little girl? Close them down.

Wendy's out. Hey Wendy's nuts. I heard what you said about me in your promo. Well, guess what? I can't wait to beat down a little girl with speech impediment because that's my favorite thing to do other than eating delicious A&W burgers. So get ready for me to kick your ass.

Okay, enough with the talk. Fight! And by that, I mean, you know, more analysis and discussion on these burgers. All right, A&W has made it all the way to the Septemberger 2025 finals. And we have one more burger to talk about. This is going to be the double mushroom onion melt, which has mushrooms, onions, It would have cheese if this were a cheeseburger tournament, but it's a hamburger tournament. And a French garlic spread that I literally went in after we finished eating and we're on our way back.

We were literally in the car and I was like, you know what? I'm turning around. I got to know what is that spread. Yeah, yeah. It's a low light in the whole experience because I'm like a low light. Because I'm like, can we go? Like, does this really matter? But in hindsight now.

It's a food podcast. Sure. But to your credit, you know, now that it's been a couple days and, you know, we've reviewed the food and everything like that, I'm glad you did ask because this spread or sauce, whatever you want to call it was. It has lived with you. Ah, yeah. Delicious. So it is a proprietary French garlic spread is what they told me. And they said the parent company ships it to them and it is only for use in this.

one burger they don't serve it as like a side sauce which i actually think it would go very well oh they like their fries or something like that they should they should definitely make it uh like a sauce that you can buy separate because yeah they would be gangbusters yeah this was your favorite of the three burgers right uh it was my second favorite of the three burgers uh but i did think both this and the other one were good yes so uh let's talk about it i mean i I guess we kind of have been. My main takeaway is that I thought it was a little bit too savory for me. And I wish that it would have had some other element to maybe add sweetness probably isn't

the element that I would have wanted to cut this with, but just something, maybe a little bit of a tang or something like that. And it just didn't have that. So it just felt like an overwhelming of like that umami flavor. Sure. And it was still good. I went 6.03 out of 10 on this burger, which is technically good for me. What did you think overall and what would you score it?

Well, like I said, the sauce was really the star of the show for this burger. I felt like it really brought all the other components of the burger together and made it just one solid sort of nice package for you to bite into and really enjoy. And again, I'm a fan of garlic. So the fact that it's kind of a garlic sort of aoli was the perfect choice. I mean, the mushrooms and the kind of the grilled onions that it had onion on it were, you know, they were just there. They weren't bad, but they didn't really add anything to it. But the sauce, like I said, was what really carried this burger.

And for me, like you said, it was my favorite of the three we tried. Yeah. What's the score? So my score for this burger is a 7.85. 7.8.5. Yeah. All right. 7.85 and 6.03. That's 13.88 divided by 2. 6.94? Let's jump to its competition. All right. We are here in the finals. Wendy's has run the gauntlet. It made a joke out of Jack. Oh, I wish I had a wordplay that was as good. It dethroned the Dairy Queen.

Uh, uh, uh, that was fast thinking. And now can it make us just go, aw, how cute to A&W. Get it. Aw. Uh, yeah. Oh. Uh, uh, A&W had a double mushroom bacon crunch burger in their finals. That was actually pretty good.

Okay. You said it and I didn't know how to feel. I do like mushrooms, but like double mushroom. Bacon crunch. And I was like, what crunch? What's crunching? They had like onion string, like the crispy onion strings. Ooh, yeah.

That is good. And it had like a proprietary like garlic aoli that they only put on that burger. It had a lot of ingredients working for it. That sounds really good. It was the best of the offerings at A&W. I am happy with it being in the finals. I think as far as showings on the bottom end of the bracket for A&W to one, get past round one by one one one hundredth of a point yeah get past round two by one tenth of a

point damn and now it's here in the finals i think this is going to come down close too but it's got its strongest offering what did we think of and this is going to be crazy the double stack we got the value burger we got the cheap version of the full burger it is a paired down just meat, but two patties. Yeah. Meat, bun, onion, pickle,

mustard. Yeah. That is all that was on this double stack. I think it comes with cheese and ketchup, but again, we're running with a bit of a handicap, so it doesn't have that. And yet.

And yet. It ruled. I think something about stripping the elements away really allowed the bun of all things. Yes, the bun was like a soft sort of like potato bun. It was so good.

The meat, this was the thing where I tasted the patties the most. This was the juiciest of the three burgers, I thought. It was really good meat. I described it as tasting like a summer camp hamburger, positive connotation. Yeah. Like, we all know what like bad summer camp food tastes like. Yeah. It's like stinky.

Yeah. It's like a little bit like new car smell. Yeah. Yeah. This was like. your best summer childhood memory, not even necessarily summer camp, but like your friend's house doing a cookout, Fourth of July, like it had like a sort of nostalgic feel. It felt cheap, right? Like, but again, I'm not saying that in a way that I mean like, ugh, like, like, it tasted

cheap. Yeah. It just felt like a value hamburger. Felt like a bun you pull out of a stack of 50 buns and, you know what I mean? Like, and somebody who's like, somebody's dad's on the line being line cook today. But, like, in a way that felt really good and nostalgic and kind of reminds you of, like, a simpler time. I'm almost going to say this. You evoke someone's dad as making it, which like, Dave, Dave promised. Everyone's dad. Everyone's dad. I was about to say, like, every man is someone's dad. And then I realized that's literally not true. Every man is someone's son. Every man is someone's dad. I'm going to stand behind that. It could go on a shirt. But in a way, it did feel like it was made with love.

Yeah. In a way that you don't expect from a fast food burger, but I think because it was like so small, it was like they were giving you a burger and being like, you're going to be okay. Yeah. And like, and we're also like being like, come back for seconds. Yeah. We're doing, we're doing hamburgers first, but we'll do hot dogs after this or like, you know, we're going to grill up with the brats the next. Do you know what I mean? It just like it had like a summer camp feel.

I don't know. This was the very epitome of less is more. Yeah. They took away elements from the others and yet it allowed it to shine. I think that the patties were too big on the baconator, which allowed it to dry out a little bit. The fact that this was value, it was smaller, it was contained, it was juicier, the pickle was delightful. The mustard was the perfect amount. Yes. The onion was crispy. Look.

Look. This was good. If we're saying at the same time, it has to be true. Yeah. The onion was crispy. And the pickles had snap, which I like, I hate when a pickle is like, when you bite into a burger and the pickle is so soft that it doesn't break and it just pulls and then you suddenly have like pickle hanging out of your mouth. Yeah. That's so emasculate. You look like an asshole.

It's like a fucking idiot. You look so stupid. You want to know why you're single? It's because you've got pickle hanging out of your mouth. A pickle hanging out of your mouth. Disgusting. And it just says, I can't take care of myself. I'm a little baby.

I have shit in my die die. That is what it says. What it says about you. Yeah. So anyway, these pickles won't do that to you. These pickles that got your back. They got your back, dude. These are your wingman.

You could go on a first date to a Wendy's, and you're not going to be embarrassed. No. These pickles won't do that to you. You can go on a third date and, like, seal the deal. Sitting in front of the fireplace. Sting on for a nude. As one does that, O' Wendy. Most of the people at this Wendy's were nude, just by the way.

Look, we're drawing it out, but I went 7.6.8. I gave it a solid. I gave it an up and down eight. Just an eight. So just an eight. So that means when you put your score with my score, the double stack. scores a 7.8-4, which is 0.9 higher than A&W's double mushroom bacon crunch. Wendy's is your winner of the September 2020-5 tournament.

The number one seed finally has won a Septemberger. Wow. Yeah. That's really exciting. We did it. I can't believe I'm here for this. We did it. Good job.

We did it. And especially against a hamburger that was a complicated one. Yeah. You were saying that it had a lot of elements, but all the elements worked. This had few elements, but sung. And I'm also going to say, I believe this was the highest of all the 24 burgers in the bracket. Wow. Because every place had three.

I really liked it. I think it was the highest scoring. It was up there. All right. Carl's Jr. had like a guacamole burger that did well. And the flamethrower burger from Dairy Queen was very good. That is good. And yet the Wendy's value double stack didn't expect it, but tasted like it was made with love.

I would go back and try it again with cheese. I would say this was the one that I got when I was in college because it was cheap. And it firmly established my affinity for Wendy's. And it's still good. And it's still good. So go get yourself a double stack. Yeah. Well, that's exciting.

That is exciting. Wowie. For the first time, the number one seed has run the Septemberger gauntlet and proven itself to be worthy of its reputation. Congratulations to Wendy's. You join Outback Steakhouse and In-N-Out as previous Septemberger champions. It's time to award you your belt and cement your legacy on the title belt with your own custom side plate. All right, Wendy, you won Septemberer. I have. to award you your championship belt, but not before showing off the custom Wendy's side plate. There you go. What do you have to say for yourself? Well, first of all, I just want to say I am honored, though not surprised, because all of these

other fools don't come fresh. If you want to win, you got to come fresh, never frozen. Wendy's always fresh forever. And that's it for September or 2025. Thanks so much for following along, submitting a bracket, and honestly, for so many of you correctly picking the winner, I will actually have a lot of entrance in the drawing for the grand prize. Be sure to head to finediningpodcast.com to join my mailing list, as I'll announce the winner there, as well as on a future episode. I'll be in touch.

In the meantime, you can get bonus scenes, extended Yelp review discussions, exclusive interviews, and additional episodes over at patreon.com slash fine dining podcast, and make sure you follow the show on Instagram and TikTok, at Fine Dining Podcast. I will be off next week, as I'm taking a week to continue setting up my new editing workstation, but I'll be back on October 22nd covering the restaurant that I consider a 10.00 on the Chochee of Mediocrity, and then the week after that, I'll tell you about my zero out of 10, the worst dining experience I can remember.

In the meantime, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in two weeks. Have a fine day. Thank you. Have a fine day!