News

White Castle cook-off yields connected customers ... plus Slider Brazilian Bruschetta

October 20, 2017

The latest promotion from White Castle manages to tap into two very hot restaurant trends — branded menu items making their way into grocery stores and patrons engaging at a more personal level with brands.

The chain announced the winners of its White Castle Crave Time Cook-Off Challenge, which invited customers to use either the original slider or cheese slider to create and submit their own recipe. Judges scored submissions for taste, originality and presentation. And the winners are:

• Grand Prize: Brenda Watts of South Carolina used cheese sliders to create Brazilian bruschetta with Brazilian tomato pesto and avocado aioli.
• Runner-up: Mary Shivers of Ada, Oklahoma, used cheese sliders to create a new version of the Monte Cristo with ham, turkey and Swiss, grilled in a waffle iron and served up with a side of red raspberry preserves for breakfast.
• Second runner-up: Samuel Agnoli of New York City used his Miami hometown's jalapeño cheese slider to create the Havana Jalapeño White Castle Craver with pickled red onions, avocado, bacon, lime and black bean aioli.

As the grand prize winner, Watts received round-trip airfare and accommodations for two to White Castle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, where she took a behind-the-scenes tour, met with the chain's Product Development team, had a cooking session in the brand's test kitchen, and lunched with CEO Lisa Ingram at a local White Castle.

"I grew up eating White Castle in Michigan, but since moving to South Carolina I haven't been able to eat at a White Castle restaurant in many years," Watts said in the release. "Needless to say, I was ecstatic to be back at White Castle! We were treated like royalty for the entire trip, and to be able to visit the restaurant responsible for so many childhood memories of mine has meant the world to me. I am still pinching myself!"

White Castle Vice President Jamie Richardson said, "As a family-owned business, White Castle embraces creativity and being bold, and each one of these winners have shown how truly unique the White Castle slider can be. We are proud to have such loyal and engaged customers and we are always looking for inspiration for new additions to our products."