Can You Eat Your Way Out Of This?

I recently read a story on Neatorama about a restaurant that’s making customers sign a waiver before eating anything doused in their signature hot sauce made with savina peppers. It’s similar to the challenge at Buffalo Wild Wings – a customer who wants to try “The “Blazin’ Challenge” has to sign a waiver and must finish 12 of the hottest wings offered in less than six minutes.

This made me think about other restaurants that offer their patrons a prize for finishing a certain helping of food. I hesitate to post these, because as soon as my husband sees the list he will take it as a personal challenge. Nevertheless, below are a few places where you can get your meal for free – if you’re up to the challenge of horking down ten percent of your body weight in half an hour.

The Beer Barrel Belly Buster
Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub
Clearfield, Pennsylvania

If you scoff at the idea of a quarter pounder, maybe Denny’s 15-pounder will wipe the smile off of your face. The 20-inch patty comes on a 17-inch bun and includes two onions, a whole head of lettuce, 25 slices of cheese, three tomatoes and lots of mayo, mustard, relish and ketchup. If you and a friend can get the whole thing down in three hours or less, you’ll get the $30 burger for free.

Apparently that wasn’t enough for Denny, though. Just last year, he introduced the 123-pound burger. That’s not a typo. One hundred and twenty-three pounds. It’ll set you back $379, but you get 80 pounds of meat, a pound of lettuce, ketchup, relish, mustard and mayo, 160 slices of cheese, five onions, 12 tomatoes, two pounds of banana peppers, 33 pickles and, of course, a 30-pound bun. [Image courtesy of Offroaders.com.]

12-Egg Omelets
Beth’s Café
Seattle, Washington

Looking for a hearty breakfast (and skyrocketing cholesterol)? Look no further than Beth’s Café in Seattle. They serve omelets in two sizes there – six eggs for the light eater, 12 eggs for the truly hungry. The omelets come with all-you-can-eat hashbrowns, too. (Note: no prize at this place, just an impressive bullet point to add to your eating resume.) [Photo courtesy of the Official Wedding Website of Jeff & Lisa.]

The Texas King
The Big Texan Steak Ranch
Amarillo, Texas

Belly Buster Challenge
Pizza Party (formerly Pizza & Pipes)
Santa Clara, California

There are some pretty stringent rules to enter the Belly Buster Challenge (a 20″ pizza). Here’s a sampling:

• One person must eat ONE BELLY BUSTER pizza made with cheese and two toppings in one hour or less
• Entire pizza must be eaten including the crust
• You may consume water or any other beverage
• We will supply water, you pay for any other drinks
• No dipping the pizza in the beverage
• You must keep the pizza down until all the pizza is consumed
• Management is the sole judge of completion of the challenge
• If you can’t keep it down YOU CLEAN IT UP
• You may not win more than once

But the reward is great: for eating a whole 20″ pizza in less than an hour, you get your entry fee back (half the price of the pizza), a t-shirt, a picture immortalizing your efforts on the wall at the restaurant, a certificate and a free extra large pizza every month for the next year.

You can read about one man’s 37-minute triumph over the Belly Buster (and two of his friends) here. You can also watch video of it here. Alas, champion competitive eater Joey Chestnut doesn’t live too far from Santa Clara and came in to break the record again. His time? A mere 15 minutes.

Monster Burritos
Pinata’s Mexican Grill
Bethpage, New York

Yeah, two burritos doesn’t really sound like they would be too much of a challenge to eat, even given a time limit. But when the burritos are three pounds each, the story kind of changes. Pinata’s has a Wall of Shame for those who fail in their attempt and a Wall of Fame for those who succeed. From what I can tell, only two pictures reside on the Wall of Fame, and those two pictures are apparently of competitive eaters – “Krazy Kevin” Lipsitz and Don “Moses” Lerman.

Finally, here’s one that doesn’t offer you a prize for finishing, but sounds pretty interesting anyway:

Cold Sweat Ice Cream
Sunni Sky’s
Angier, North Carolina

Spicy ice cream? Yep. So spicy, in fact, customers have to sign a waiver before they even taste it. It’s mixed with three types of pepper and two types of hot sauce. One of the first customers to try it had to go to the bathroom pretty much immediately and throw up. He’s had it several times since then and hopes to go for the record – 14 ounces in one sitting.

And here’s a fun video of a morning show DJ attempting to eat a cup of Cold Sweat. Warning: there is an emergency trip to the bathroom involved at the end.

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