Competitive eaters take on 'Heart Stopper' burger challenge at Shrewsbury restaurant
They came, they saw, but did they conquer?
Described as competitive eaters, American Randy Santel and the UK's Max Stanford travelled to Shropshire to take on a monster burger created by the SmokeStop restaurant just outside Shrewsbury.
They were faced by the Houston Heart Buster. The an enormous, £45 burger consisted of:
1.5kg of beefburger patty
400g of home-smoked BBQ pulled pork
10 slices of streaky bacon
10 slices of American cheese
10 lettuce leaves
10 slices of tomato
10 slices of onion
Homemade burger sauce
This was all wrapped up in a 12-inch bread bun.
American YouTuber Randy is on an eating tour of the UK, while Max agreed to join him at the Smokestop for the challenge.
"You are my absolute idol, I have only been doing this for two and a half years and I have always looked up to you," Max told Randy.
Their challenge was to try to eat one of the Houston Heart Busters in under an hour, something only four people had done in the past and all of them professional eaters.
Manager of the Smokestop, Harry Wedge, said, hundreds of ordinary diners had taken on the challenge and not one had been able to finish the burger within an hour, having to stump up the cost of the dish.
"There was one weekend when we had 70-80 people take on the challenge and none of them succeeded," he said.
"Each time the meal is ordered we put money in a pot and when that reaches £1,000 we hold a special day when we weigh the plateful at the beginning and then at the end and the person who has eaten the most has the £1,000 shared between them and a charity of their choice."
A large group of competition eating fans crowded into the SmokeStop to watch Randy and Max go head-to-head - or mouth-to-mouth - to try to eat the burgers in an hour.
And to their surprise it was not the master but the apprentice, Max, who finished his burger first, in 25 minutes. Randy struggled but did finish within the hour, taking 52 minutes.
