Two Octobers in a row, downtown Birmingham has crowned a Best Burger champion, and twice the trophy has skipped the place you'd expect to win it. In 2024, the inaugural BirminghamBURGER title went to Adachi, known for sushi and Japanese cooking, with a wagyu-leaning creation called "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover." In 2025, the crown moved to Terra Kitchen & Cocktails on North Old Woodward Avenue, for a burger built around crispy prosciutto and sundried tomato jam. Birmingham Pub entered the field last year. It did not win. Bell Bistro entered too. Also no trophy.
That pattern is worth knowing before the third BirminghamBURGER opens on October 1, because this has been a year of real change on the ground downtown, and the kind of kitchens that keep winning this thing just got more competition.
What's Actually New Since Winter
If you've been downtown less often this year than you'd like, here's what you missed.
Big Rock Italian Chophouse reopened July 15 inside the restored Grand Trunk Western Railroad Depot at 245 South Eton Street. The building spent nearly 40 years as the original Big Rock Chophouse before closing in December 2021. Cameron Mitchell Restaurants put roughly $10 million into bringing it back as a 375-seat Italian steakhouse with a private cigar club, keeping the Tudor Revival roofline and herringbone brick that made the depot a landmark in the first place.
Besos opened May 27, chef Matthew Kenney's vegan restaurant built around whole-foods cooking, seating about 100 people and running from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.
And the RH Rooftop Restaurant arrived as part of RH Detroit, The Gallery, a four-story, 60,000-square-foot design showroom that is the only one of its kind in Michigan. The rooftop dining room sits under skylights with olive trees on the deck, a fitting neighbor for a downtown that already takes its architecture seriously.
Add those to a field that already includes Adachi, Terra Kitchen & Cocktails, Bell Bistro, Casa Pernoi, Hazel's, La Strada Italian Kitchen & Bar, Elie's Mediterranean Grill & Bar and Market North End, and you have a downtown with more serious kitchens per block than it's had in years.
Fall Already Started
The Birmingham Art Walk happened September 17, presented by the Birmingham Shopping District with the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center and the City of Birmingham Public Arts Board. It's a free, unticketed evening that spreads across downtown sidewalks rather than one venue, and if you missed it, the Sunday Farmers Market keeps running through October 25, which is still your best excuse for an early walk before the weather turns.
But the bigger date on the calendar is the one that hasn't happened yet.
The Pattern, By the Numbers
BirminghamBURGER is run by the Birmingham Shopping District as a monthlong, no-judges-required competition. Restaurants build one signature burger for October only, and the public rates each one on taste, presentation and creativity at downtownbirmingham.com/burger. Order as many as you want, as many times as you want. Burgers generally start around $15.
The contest has grown fast. Year one, 2024, drew 18 Birmingham restaurants and more than 2,900 ratings. Year two, 2025, grew to 20 participating businesses and 5,570 votes, according to the Shopping District's own numbers. That's participation up more than a tenth and voter turnout nearly doubling in a single year, which tells you this stopped being a novelty after its first run.
What hasn't changed is who wins. Adachi didn't build its reputation on burgers. It built one anyway, layered with the same compound flavors and house-made components it uses on a sushi menu, and won. Terra Kitchen did something similar the following year, treating the burger like a composed plate: a dry-aged blend, crispy prosciutto porcini compound butter, pickled fennel, roasted garlic aioli, served with Tuscan spiced fries instead of a basket. Meanwhile Birmingham Pub, whose entire identity is built around exactly this kind of food, has entered and come home without the trophy.
Two years is a small sample, but it points to something specific. The winners haven't been the restaurants that specialize in bar food. They've been kitchens that treat the burger as a technical exercise, a place to show off the same precision they use on their actual menu, rather than an easy layup.
What That Means for This Year's Field
If that pattern holds, the restaurant to watch this October isn't necessarily the one built around a burger. It's whichever new or returning kitchen brings its real technique to the format instead of a straightforward patty and bun.
Big Rock Italian Chophouse just moved a 375-seat operation with real culinary depth into the neighborhood. Whether it enters the field this year isn't confirmed as of this writing, but if a restaurant that just spent seven figures restoring a historic depot decides to compete, the two-year pattern says that's the entry worth trying first. Bell Bistro already has a year in the contest under its belt and, going by the same logic, has more room to build on what it learned. The full 2026 roster will post to downtownbirmingham.com/burger as October approaches, and it's worth checking before you plan your first stop.
Birmingham Shopping District Executive Director Erika Bassett has said the event is becoming exactly what it looks like from the outside: a reason for people who already know these restaurants to try something they wouldn't otherwise order, and a reason for people who haven't been in a while to come back. Two years of data suggest the smart strategy is simple. Skip your assumptions about who's supposed to win, and order from whoever's kitchen usually does something more complicated than a burger.
BirminghamBURGER runs October 1 through 31. Vote as often as you like, at as many restaurants as you like, and the trophy goes up sometime in early November.
If you're the kind of person who tracks which restaurant wins a burger contest two years running, you probably already know your way around this downtown better than most. If you're weighing what it would mean to actually live closer to Old Woodward, whether that's your first house here or your next one, I'd be glad to talk it through. Reach out to Kathy Remski any time. Let's Connect.
