The Trail Times and Rossland News are back at it again with the second Trail/Rossland Burger Month! 🍔
Starting Thursday, June 5th, and running until June 30th, this delicious competition features eight local restaurants battling it out for bragging rights (and the coveted title of “Best Burger in Town”).
Trail/Rossland Burger Month Menu 2025
Text Description of the above Menu
🏆 Our #1 Pick for Trail & Rossland Burger Month 🏆
We tried all 8 burgers in this year’s competition. It was a close one for us, but here’s our pick for the best burger this year!
🥇Redstone Resort Clubhouse
🍔 Cluck Around & Find Out
It’s hard not to smile at the sheer size of this one – a literal mountain of fresh greens, carrots, sprouts, and tomatoes piled on a crisp fried chicken thigh with sauces you’ll tell your kids about one day 🤩
Redstone’s fried chicken is fabulous – golden brown, crispy and tender, it’d be a great dish even if it wasn’t supported by an all-star cast of burger toppings!
There’s a whole garden worth of fresh veggies here: cabbage slaw, tomatoes, pickles, sliced carrots, micro green sprouts. All crunchy and fresh, balancing out the fried chicken beautifully. We’re pretty confident that enough veggies makes any dish healthy, and we’re pretty sure Redstone would agree!
There’s two sauces here, a southern-style hot sauce and a green goddess sauce. The first you’ll be familiar with, but for those who’ve never had a green goddess sauce, it’s usually made with yogurt, fresh herbs such as cilantro and mint, lemon juice, and other secret ingredients for a creamy dressing that’s used here as a burger sauce that goes perfectly with all those veggies.
It’s a divine burger with incredible contrasting flavours: both heartwarming and refreshing, spicy and creamy, and it fully sticks the landing making this our favourite burger of Trail & Rossland Burger Month 2025!
7 Other Burgers You Need to Try
We LOVED so many of these fantastic entries! Trail & Rossland Burger Month is just getting started, so make sure to try whatever catches your eye before June 30th!
While our #1 is listed above, the rest of these are in the order we tried them in – you can consider all of these our honourable mentions!
Check out our socials for video highlights of Trail & Rossland Burger Month! We can’t wait for you to try these😋
Birchbank Bistro
🍔Velveta & Mac Stuffed Burger
The closest thing to a classic cheeseburger in the competition, this is a burger that we think everyone will love!
Smash patties should be just like this: thin, moist, and with a strong sizzling crust. Cooked to a perfect sear, this burger is served with two textbook-perfect smash patties, covered with American cheese and stuffed with a layer of Mac & cheese.
There’s just enough to create an extra layer of cheesy goodness, but it’s pretty subtle, melting into the total package for a super gooey, cheesy bite. Paired with these nicely browned patties, it’s an incredible bite that captures the essence of a cheeseburger just right.
The veggies here are your classic cheeseburger fixings: iceberg lettuce, tomato, and dill pickle, and honestly… what else could you ask for? It’s the real deal!
Donnie’s Bistro
🍔 Spicy Pork Sando
Donnie’s Bistro is back open for the summer season with a gorgeous sunny patio. We haven’t seen pork belly served like this as the main base – two pieces of slow braised pork belly melted in the mouth, pretty luxurious feeling.
The standout ingredient here is the honey mustard. It’s applied here with the perfect touch – it had just enough sweetness and flavor from the mustard. The consistency was thinner than a typical mayo, which I liked. The light and sweet tang contrasted nicely with the gochujang sauce underneath. The gochujang provided a sweet kick of heat. It’s the spiciest of the burgers. If you like spice (we do!) you’ll notice the subtle heat, and if you don’t like spice at all you may want to ask to go light on the gochujang sauce.
The cabbage as the slaw was a perfect green in this burger as it provided needed crunch to contrast with the soft pork belly, and it was a nice vehicle to be coated with the sauces. It was shredded very finely so was light and pleasant to chew on.
Get up to Donnie’s at Red and enjoy their burger on the sunny patio or surrounded by dozens of happy plants.
Velvet Restaurant
🍔 The Summit Stack
Fine ingredients elevate this classic burger in the gorgeous Velvet Restaurant.
Tender yet hearty, the Alberta-local brisket smash patty had a wonderful crisp on the edges and a pleasant thickness. It’s just the right size to bite into for a such a decadent cut of meat.
Smoked Gouda was a superb choice, as the smokiness came through just enough to complement the meat without being too dominant of a flavour. Pickled shallots and a sweet caramelized onion aioli brought wonderful contrast to the mix; every ingredient balanced beautifully.
The burger was finished with some fresh romaine and a couple slices of sour pickle to add a welcome tang and crunch to the other rich ingredients.
The star of the show here is the caramelized onions – providing such a luscious touch to the burger; so comforting next to the smoked Gouda. With the seared smash brisket, and the bright tang of the pickles, it’s a lovely elevated version of a smash burger that we happily enjoyed in this beautiful airy space.
Rock Cut Pub
🍔 Apple Bottom BBL
Packed full of flavours, the Apple Bottom BBL is a burger not afraid to bring bold flavours to the table for a burger that will keep you on your toes all the way through!
In addition to the classic lettuce and tomato, there’s layers of depth here with sweetness from beets and apples, sharp pickled shallots, and a crunchy onion ring.
Thick cut bacon has been given the gourmet treatment here: hickory smoked before being cooked in a maple-apple-rum glaze. Talk about wow!
The patty is a 50:50 bison chuck mix, which (in our experience with about 100 burgers this year) is one of the best combinations when cooking with bison: not too lean, not too fatty. It’s a good showcase for the flavour of the bison, and still plenty tender.
The sauces here might be the highlight, with TWO incredible flavours on display.
The first is the same incredible maple-apple-rum glaze from the bacon, this time transformed into an exquisite bacon onion jam that makes for a very tasty treat.
Sauce number two is a aioli made of butternut squash, goat cheese, and leek and parsnip aioli: rich and complex, and just loaded with beautiful savoury flavours. It’s a one-of-a-kind sauce that you won’t want to miss!
The total package here is burger stacked with carefully chosen flavours and textures that’s very much a mix of bold savoury flavours and sweetness from the jam, fruit and beets. We think you’ll love it!
Flying Steam Shovel
🍔 Lamb Burger
Some of the world’s most famous burgers have just a few ingredients, choosing synergy over quantity for a refined flavour profile that works together in perfect harmony.
This burger is anything but boring though! It’s a smash lamb patty with arugula, herbed goat cheese and mint chimichurri, with pickles and tomatoes served on the side. You can choose to put them on if you want, but ingredients on this burger go so well together we chose to treat the side veggies as a pallette cleanser instead.
The meat has a subtle lamb flavour, seasoned and slightly charred. A smash-style patty, it’s thin and wide, an easy and pleasant experience to eat.
Goat cheese is a fantastic complement to the flavour of the lamb and the fresh arugula: thick and creamy, infused with Mediterranean herbs.
The second sauce is a mint chimichurri that’s a very bold flavour! Lamb with mint chutney was a favourite of ours growing up, so we love to see those two things paired here, and it really is one of the central flavours in this burger. It’s intense, although not overwhelming, made of fresh herbs, spices, and oil for a sauce that really mingles with the creamy cheese and lamb for a well designed synergy that’s just so satisfying.
The Tunnel Pub
🍔 Ribbed for your Pleasure
The Tunnel Pub brought something totally unique to the burger competition. Breaking away from traditional ground beef patties, it features a rib patty served up on a pretzel bun, topped with red onion and a lime miso slaw
We’ve personally never had the pleasure of trying a McRib (the most famous rib sandwich), but this is The Tunnel’s take on that now iconic discontinued menu item.
The patty was tender, fatty, and oh-so-juicy, reminding us immediately of the sensation and flavour of a rack of ribs, smoked on the BBQ, only without the bones, and a little more uniform.
This burger came on a pretzel hoagie bun, firm and chewy, while also keeping the sandwich together, even with the tangy, sweet, and punchy BBQ sauce. We’ve never seen a pretzel bun shaped like this, and it’s a pretty special experience.
A super-thinly shaved lime miso slaw provided a delicate and fresh balance, lightening up the sandwich and providing a burst of crunch to this fun and unique burger month entry.
Tailout Brewing Taproom
🍔 Lettuce Donair You a Secret
Substituting ground beef for donair-style shaved meat, Tailout’s menu blends one of the world’s most iconic handheld wraps with America’s most famous culinary export for one tasty combo!
Serving up slow roasted beef, seasoned and spiced before being shaved thin, this burger is a joy to bite into. It’s juicy, tender, and very different from all the other burgers in the competition.
The toppings are similarly inspired, with all your favourite donair toppings: pickled red onion, smoked gouda, crisp iceberg lettuce, chopped pickles, and a little bit of crispy pepperoni on top. It’s a great package, with plenty of contrast between the pickled veggies, soft cheese, and crispy lettuce.
The sauce here is Halifax donair sauce: a sweet and tangy white sauce with garlic and cream that gives the dish a distinctive flavour that’s unique to donair. Paired with the sharp pickles and smoky gouda, there’s lots going on here, and it’s a very fun (if messy) dish that we thoroughly enjoy and recommend!
Event Contest Details:
8 Competitors:
- Birchbank Bistro
- Tailout Brewing Taproom
- The Flying Steamshovel
- Velvet Restaurant (The Josie)
- The Tunnel Pub
- Rock Cut Pub
- Donnie’s Bistro
- Redstone Resort Clubhouse
Dates: June 5th – June 30th, 2025
Price: $17 (plus tax). Sides and drinks are extra, and highly encouraged.
The Power is in Your Hands: The winner will be decided by YOU! Vote online for your favourite here!
Voting Draw: When you vote, you have a chance to win a $25 gift certificate from each participating restaurant!
How to Vote
Votes will be tallied after the competition closes June 30th! Make sure to vote for your favourite before then online. There will be a winner crowned in each of three categories:
- Best Presentation
- Best Tasting
- Most Original
Share the Fun!
Share your burger month favourites online using the hashtag #trailburgermonth2025, and make sure to bring a friend. Supporting small business has never been so tasty!
Looking for more to eat in Trail? Check out our growing list of favourite restaurants in Trail (and let us know your favourite in the comments!
