Well, folks, our month-long adventure of meat madness is over. After leaving the Burger Brackets final open for voting for the past week, it's time to announce the clear winner. . . (can we get a drumroll, please?). . .

EatBar! The Arlingtonian gastropub, pictured above, fought off tough competition from BLT Steak, and eventually emerged the winner with 54% of the vote. Congrats! And many thanks to all the ardent burger fans who voted for their favorites all throughout the competition.

Now that Burger Brackets is over (at least, this installment), we have a few questions for you! 

UPDATE: This poll is now closed. The winner of the Burger Brackets has been announced! You can read who it is here. 

Well, folks, when we started the Burger Brackets back at the beginning of March, we have to admit, we had a certain pre-conception about how things were going to go down in the burger wars. We knew we had selected 32 worthy burger spots, and that there would be some tough battles. But like most of you, we figured that it was obvious who'd make it down to the quarterfinals, semifinals, and who might even win. Ray's Hell Burger was a contender, for sure, as was Five Guys, and Palena Cafe's artful creation of a burger. Clearly, big-name burger joint that everybody expected to win, would, well, win. For all the fun this exercise in voting and brackets was, surely the outcome was a no-brainer.

But if there's one thing we've learned from the Burger Brackets (besides the fact that posting these every day for the past month may have contributed to us eating 79% more burgers for lunch than we normally would), it's that you should never underestimate the underdogs. Who knew that Elevation Burger had such devoted fans, for example, or Chadwick's? Who knew a steakhouse would make it to the top? Who'd have thunk that a little Arlington gastropub would make it all the way to the finals?

And yet, here we are. And with that, we bid adieu to the rest of the fine Burger Brackets contenders, say a prayer for our cholesterol levels, and give you the final burger face-off.

Well, in a neck-and-neck vote that was too close to call until right before we closed the poll, both Elevation Burger and BLT Steak proved themselves to have a rabid fanbase. And so we have our first-ever entrant into the Burger Brackets final...drumroll...BLT Steak!

The voting on the finals will open tomorrow, Friday, March 27 at 2 PM, and will stay open for a whole week this time. So vote early (but not often: we'll be monitoring the polls to make sure there are no shenangians going on in the voting. If we see what appears to be irregularities, we reserve the right to disqualify an entrant).  

For now, let's get on to the last match-up before we hit the finals. Check below for the face-off! 

Just a reminder: you can keep tabs on all the Burger Brackets and browse through past ones here.

Well, folks, here we are. After several weeks of frenzied voting, of up-and-down face-offs, of two burger legends getting kicked out far earlier than anyone anticipated, we've finally made our way to the Burger Brackets quarter finals. The final four. Who's left? We've got...

BLT Steak

Elevation Burger

Chadwicks

EatBar

And with that, let's kick off the quarter-final voting. Today's match-up will stay open until 2 PM tomorrow, and then we'll announce the next face-off, which will be open until Friday at 2 PM. And then, we'll have reached the finals! Voting for the final face-off of the Burger Brackets will stay open a whole week.

So! Without any further ado, today's match-up is...

Just a reminder: you can keep tabs on all the Burger Brackets and browse through past ones here.    

Well, we predicted that Elevation Burger vs. Central would be a Clash of the Fans, and we were right. It was up and down, back and forth, all day yesterday, until sometime in the evening when Elevation took right over and maintained an unstoppable lead. Commenters got understandably riled up over the face-off, but remember, folks—let's keep things nice. And so we say au revoir to Central, and move on to the final match-up of the quarter-finals. Who is it? Check below to vote.

Just a reminder: you can keep tabs on all the Burger Brackets and browse through past ones here.   

We're still suffering from the aftershocks of two of the spots we thought would make it to the final being kicked out—Ray's Hell-Burger and Five Guys. They're as done as an overcooked burger patty (har, har). But we've still got some solid match-ups going on. Over the weekend, Chadwick's took down Harry's Tap Room; the day before that was the day the BLT Steak fan machine kicked into high gear and took down Five Guys.

We're just as excited for today's match-up between two burger joints that have proved themselves to have some of the strongest fan bases throughout this competition. Who are they? Check below to see, and to vote.

Just a reminder: you can keep tabs on all the Burger Brackets and browse through past ones here.  

Commenter slurpeeman made us laugh with his recent thoughts on what would happen if Five Guys got kicked out of the Burger Brackets by BLT Steak:

"Remember the explanation of what would happen if the Ghostbusters let their proton beams cross each other? That is the same thing that will happen if Five Guys loses this competition:

'Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.'
—Dr. Egon Spengler, Ghostbuster."

Well, even though we're still here, and none of our bodily molecules have exploded (uh, as far as we can tell), the unthinkable seems to have happened: Five Guys is out. Done. Finito. Totally had its butt kicked by what appears to be an unstoppable BLT Steak machine. We're sorry to see you go, Five Guys. There's always next year.

But moving on! There are even more Burger Brackets face-offs to vote on. Today's match-up? Check below.

And as a reminder, you can keep tabs on all the Burger Brackets and browse through past ones here.