Hamburg's Hamburg-er Festival Growing in Popularity

The hamburger buns look nice and tasty now, but Saturday it's likely they will be all gone as grills fire up at the 7th Annual Taste of Hamburg-er Festival in Hamburg.

Restaurants from as far away as Maryland are expected to participate.

"The town's going to be packed with, hopefully, thousands of people," said Deena Kershner, one of the event's organizers. "Lots of burgers, lots of activities, beer and wine garden, so we're just looking forward to a lot of people coming into the town."

Since the event is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Beef Council, the 27 burger stands will only be selling ground beef.

"You can put any type of toppings on top of their burgers, they're allowed seafood, or any type of other meat toppings," Kershner said. "But no hot dogs, no pizza, you won't find anything like that on the street."

One of the more popular attractions is the hamburger eating contest, which starts at 3:00 p.m. Nine thousand burgers were sold at last year's festival, and organizers hope to sell more this year. They're even extending festival hours to 6:00 p.m.

"We have done numerous surveys and all the vendors that participate say that they just feel 5:00, 6:00 is the best," Kershner said. "It's hard when you're preparing the burgers and the fresh food, you have to be very careful."

Kershner recommends that folks park at the Hamburg Field House on Pine Street, because the State Street Bridge is closed for construction.