Calling All Kids With Culinary Ambitions: Red Robin Challenges Youth to Create America’s Next Gourmet Burger

The contest encourages kids to play with their food and get creative in the kitchen with their family and friends to concoct their own gourmet burger recipe. The winning gourmet burger will be featured in every Red Robin restaurant next summer.

Nacho cheese, gummy worms, fried pickles, pizza and chocolate were just a few of the inventive ingredients kids suggested to Red Robin for consideration as America’s next gourmet burger in 2006. The Spicy Asian Burger, created by 10-year-old food connoisseur Adrianna Montgomery, from Raleigh, N.C., was selected as the winner of the inaugural contest. Adrianna’s Asian-inspired burger featured a variety of ‘foodie’ ingredients like Napa cabbage, a ginger wasabi sauce and crispy wontons.

The winning gourmet burger and approximately 50 additional recipes from kids across the country will be selected for inclusion in a cookbook sold online at www.redrobin.com to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) next summer. Each gourmet burger included in the cookbook will be selected based on its inventive ingredients and fun flavors. Recipes from various celebrities will also be included in the cookbook as well as Internet safety tips and conversation starters for families provided by NCMEC and the NetSmartz Workshop, NCMEC’s Internet safety resource. NetSmartz provides age-appropriate resources focused on basic Internet safety, social networking, and real-life stories which are available free of charge at www.NetSmartz.org. Nationwide purchases of the inaugural Red Robin contest cookbook this summer resulted in a more than $41,000 donation to NCMEC.

To select the grand prize winner, 10 semi-finalists will be invited to Denver, Colo. in November to compete in the “Next Gourmet Burger Kids’ Recipe Contest” Championship where they will make their burger for a panel of Red Robin judges and local celebrities. During the competition, three runners-up and a grand prize winner will be selected.

All 10 semi-finalists will receive a trip to Colorado for the event and a Red Robin iPod as a prize.  In addition to the grand prize winner’s gourmet burger being featured in every U.S. Red Robin restaurant in 2008, the grand prize winner’s family will receive a family vacation to Universal Studios Hollywood, The Entertainment Capital of L.A., and will be invited to act as a special guest judge at Red Robin’s Smiling Burger Championship event held in January, 2008 in the Bahamas.

All U.S. Red Robin restaurants will have entry forms and will accept gourmet burger recipe ideas from Aug. 13 to Sept. 16, 2007. To find the nearest Red Robin restaurant location, visit www.redrobin.com.