So, in the off chance that you do not live in Pittsburgh and have no knowledge of Pittsburgh sports, or have not been near a TV playing the news in the past year or so, I will do a brief introduction to this Achivement. Here in Pittsburgh, we have a quarterback named Ben Roethlisberger. He is a pretty damn good quarterback, although his other qualities as a human being are not quite so well-defined. (I swear I am not going to get political or judgmental, I am just going to provide entertaining commentary on… non-political or judgmental things!)
Anyway. This is an obvious marketing gem if you are a Pittsburgh-area food establishment. The guy already has ‘burger’ in his name (kind of)! There’s no need to stretch and stick his name onto other things where it doesn’t quite belong, like pickles (Kasparaitis Krunchers) or condiments (Joey Porter Salsa) or ‘food pastes’ (Jagr Creamy Peanut Butter – and no, I am not kidding, I looked it up, and peanut butter is categorized as a ‘food paste’). No, unlike these other celebrites of endorsed meal options, Ben’s name istelf already is a sandwich!
Naturally, there are several establishments in Pittsburgh that have capitalized on this. One is the little breakfast and burger joint up the street from our old place in Bloomfield, G/M Dog n Burger Shoppe, and the other is the Pittsburgh sandwich legend, Peppi’s. We decided (in the end of 2009, before our QB’s naughty behavior made headlines) that we would try the sandwiches from both and decide which was best.
We tried initially to go on Ben’s first game back (because of his indiscretions, he was suspended the first four games of the regular season this year), but both Peppi’s and now the Shoppe are closed on Sundays. So, we wound up going the afternoon before our dramatic Monday night win against the Cincinnati Bengals (one of our sworn enemies).
Here I am with the burger, which is wicked cheap! Just $2.95 for this yummy masterpiece, which compared to other burgers of its size and magnitude is quite a steal.
Here’s a close-up of the contents: two patties (those delicious, not-really-great-quality-meat patties that always taste the best), each topped with slices of pepper jack cheese, and completed with some bacon slices on top.
The final verdict? While the man himself remains in our ‘useful to us only as a quarterback’ category, the sandwich named after the man? It’s good!