Meet the Macon Burger Squad

There are moments in life when you stop and wonder exactly how you got here. For me, one of those moments came when I learned that the host of The Creek's food podcast would be responsible for choosing the Gold Burger Award during Macon Burger Week 2026.

Wait a minute. That's me. Somehow, a guy who started a Facebook page because he liked eating at restaurants and talking about them is now being handed the responsibility of choosing one of the official awards during one of my favorite food events in Macon. No pressure whatsoever.

Macon Burger Week returns Friday, October 30 through Sunday, November 8, and after experiencing my first Burger Week last year, I already knew this year was going to be special. For ten glorious days, restaurants across Bibb County will roll up their sleeves, fire up their grills and attempt to answer one of life's most important questions: How much deliciousness can you possibly fit between two buns?

Last year's Burger Week was one of the events that helped me fall even more in love with Macon's food community. There was something wonderfully ridiculous about watching people plan their days around hamburgers, compare pictures, trade recommendations and debate their favorites like we were selecting a new pope. Restaurants were packed. Friends were comparing passports. Social media feeds became an endless parade of melted cheese, crispy bacon, special sauces and beef patties. And somehow, despite knowing another burger was waiting the next day, we kept saying the same thing: Okay, maybe just one more.

This year, Burger Week feels a little different for me. What began with Billy's Let's Eat Review eventually led me to these pages as a food columnist for The Macon Melody and The Telegraph. That journey then led to Billy's Let's Eat, the new food podcast on The Creek 100.9, created in partnership with Visit Macon. And now Visit Macon has decided that the host of that podcast will select the 2026 Gold Burger Award. Again, that's me. I am incredibly honored. I am incredibly excited. And after thinking about the responsibility involved in tasting all those burgers and selecting one for the Gold Burger Award, I came to a very important conclusion. I needed backup. I also needed to buy some more elastic waistband pants!

So I created the Macon Burger Squad. I asked my amazing followers to imagine that they had only one burger left to eat before leaving this earth. What would be on it? Where would they eat it? And why would that be their final burger? The prize was not money. There was no tropical vacation. Nobody is getting a new car. Instead, three lucky people won the privilege of spending ten days with me eating every single burger entered into Macon Burger Week 2026. Yes, every single burger. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the guys who apparently looked at that challenge and thought, "That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do."

Chris Case is a Macon native, born and raised on the Southside, whose relationship with food expanded dramatically after joining the military at 18. His travels introduced him to food around the world, from seafood boils on beaches in Italy to camel in Kuwait and meals shared with families in the mountains of Nepal. Yet when asked to imagine his last burger on Earth, Chris brought the experience right back home to Macon.

His final burger would be a triple decker smash burger on a soft potato bun with melted Colby Jack, purple onion, seasoned tomato, green leaf lettuce, Japanese mayonnaise, mustard, Cholula and enough smooth dill pickle chips that, by his own admission, there may be more pickle than burger. And do not bring this man ridged pickle chips. Apparently, even on the doorstep of eternity, Chris Case has standards. He would eat that final creation on top of a building in downtown Macon, looking out over the hometown he left to see the world and eventually came home to appreciate all over again. Chris also informed me that cilantro can go in anything. We will deal with that situation as a group when the time comes.

Then there is Michael Newton, a retired Marine combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient whose life after the military has included being a certified flight instructor, chief pilot, medical helicopter pilot and airline pilot. He owns small businesses and volunteers his time helping fellow veterans through his work with WBP. Michael's final burger submission quickly revealed something else about him. He will apparently serve as the Burger Squad's resident burger engineer.

Michael's dream burger begins with a double smash patty made from a precise blend of 50 percent chuck, 25 percent brisket and 25 percent short rib, smashed paper thin on screaming hot cast iron to maximize those crispy edges. Then come American cheese, caramelized onions, fresh dill pickles, pepper crusted bacon, a sunny side egg and cilantro sriracha mayonnaise, all tucked inside a butter toasted potato roll. Michael even invoked the Maillard reaction in his explanation. I asked the man about a hamburger. He practically submitted blueprints.

Buried inside all that burger science, however, was a philosophy that may become very important during our journey. Michael does not believe a great burger needs to be enormous or overloaded with ingredients simply for attention. He wants balance, texture and proper execution. As he put it, "It isn't trying to be fancy; it's just trying to be a burger." For his final meal, Michael would take that burger to Coleman Hill on a crisp fall afternoon or spread out a picnic blanket atop the Great Temple Mound and watch the sun settle over Macon.

Our third member, Clarke Jackson, brings an entirely different perspective to the Squad. Clarke is relatively new to Macon after relocating from Orlando, Florida, and he sees being the new guy as an advantage. He has traveled for food from Peru to Ireland and will happily seek out everything from a tiny hole in the wall restaurant to a Michelin starred dining room if somebody tells him the food is worth the trip. His Burger Squad philosophy may be the simplest of all: Was it "worth the bite or simply all hype?"

Clarke's last burger would take him back to Orlando for the OG at Speakeasy Burger, an Oklahoma style double smash burger with caramelized onions, pickles and signature sauce on a soft potato bun. What Clarke loves about it is precisely what makes his perspective interesting. It isn't complicated. It is simply executed well. Crispy edges on the patties, sweetness from the onions and sauce, acidity from the pickles and a soft bun holding everything together. "Sometimes if you do something right you don't have to overdo it," Clarke wrote. He also warned that you should not wear a good shirt while eating it because that shirt is probably not surviving the experience. Now that is the kind of burger review I can trust.

As for me, the most perfect burger for my last day on Earth isn't going to be a surprise. I would want a smoked burger with smoked gouda cheese, an extra crispy fried green tomato with pimento cheese on a super fresh potato bun. And of course, the crispiest onion rings on the side. For me, that's just a plate of bliss.

Together, the four of us will bring four different backgrounds, four different palates and four different opinions to Macon Burger Week, and we are going to try every single burger. I want everyone to understand what we have gotten ourselves into here. We are not choosing five favorites from the pictures. We are not stopping when our jeans begin filing formal complaints. From October 30 through November 8, if a participating restaurant has an official Burger Week burger, the Macon Burger Squad intends to try it.

We will be sharing the journey along the way, talking about what surprised us, what worked, what made us stop after the first bite and look at each other, and probably what required additional napkins. There will undoubtedly be disagreements, and that's actually the point. Chris may fall in love with something Clarke thinks is too complicated. Michael may start discussing meat ratios while the rest of us are still chewing. Somebody will probably put cilantro on something and cause an internal investigation. Four different palates mean four different opinions, and I want people following along to hear all of them.

Underneath all the jokes, however, we are taking the burgers seriously. Ultimately, the responsibility for selecting the Gold Burger Award rests with me as host of Billy's Let's Eat. The Burger Squad will give me three additional palates, three additional perspectives and plenty of discussion as we work our way across Macon. The People's Choice awards will give Burger Week diners the opportunity to make their voices heard, with first, second and third place honors, while the Burger Slinger Award will recognize the restaurant that sells the most Burger Week burgers.

And then there is the Gold Burger. I'm not looking for the burger with the tallest stack or the craziest list of ingredients simply because it photographs well. I want to find the burger that makes you take that first bite and immediately know that somebody in that kitchen understood the assignment. The beef matters. The cook matters. The bun matters. The toppings matter. The balance matters. Above everything else, though, it has to taste really, really good.

For restaurants thinking about entering, now is the time. Burger creations submitted to Visit Macon by September 18 can be considered for advance filming, social media and other promotional opportunities. Restaurants that miss that date still have until October 2, the absolute deadline to participate in Macon Burger Week 2026. There are two important rules for the creation itself. The burger must be all beef, and it cannot cost more than $12.

So to every restaurant in Bibb County that has been quietly thinking, "We make a pretty damn good burger," consider this your invitation. Show us. Create something memorable and give us the burger you think people will still be talking about after November 8. Give us something that makes people take a picture before the first bite and then completely forget about their phone once they taste it.

Because while four guys eating an unreasonable number of hamburgers is certainly going to make for some entertaining content, Burger Week is about something bigger. Every burger ordered means someone walked through the door of a local restaurant. It means cooks are cooking, servers are serving and people are discovering businesses they may never have tried otherwise. That's what I loved about Burger Week last year. For ten days, Macon talks about food together.

This year, Chris Case, Michael Newton, Clarke Jackson and I are climbing into the middle of that conversation, one burger at a time. We'll show you what we're eating. We'll tell you what we're tasting. We'll introduce you to the people creating these burgers. We'll probably argue. We'll definitely laugh. And somewhere among all those sizzling patties, toasted buns, melting cheese, crispy edges, pickles, onions, bacon, sauces and whatever else Macon's kitchens dream up, we'll find the 2026 Gold Burger.

So follow along, or better yet, grab a passport and eat along with us. Macon Burger Week begins October 30, and the Macon Burger Squad is officially assembled. Four men, ten days and every single burger Macon can throw at us. Make sure you follow "Billy's Let's Eat Review" on Facebook because we will be documenting our ENTIRE journey. We'll post pictures at every single restaurant. We even plan on "going live" a few times and I can pretty much guarantee that we will be stopping by the studios at The Creek 100.9 a couple of times during our Burger Journey.