Cool Plates features dishes from across the country to help inspire chefs' creativity.
Before opening in any new market, Smashburger founder and chief concept officer Tom Ryan and his team scout out food trends in the area to determine what locals like to eat, what’s hot and what regional trends are driving customers’ food choices.
For Atlanta, that means Georgia peaches, Vidalia onions and anything spicy.
So the local Smashburger is topped with peach barbecue sauce, Wicked Pimina cheese, grilled jalapeños and Vidalia coleslaw, all on an egg bun.
The barbecue sauce has peach compote mixed into it and also tops the chain’s local chicken sandwich.
Ryan describes the Wicked Pimina cheese as a modern-day version of pimiento cheese, only spicier.
The jalapeños, about an ounce of them, are cooked next to the burgers on the grill.
The slaw is shredded green cabbage with some purple cabbage and carrot mixed in, dressed with a Vidalia onion cole slaw sauce that’s made every morning.
The cheese, jalapeños and cole slaw also top the Atlanta hot dog.
The 110-unit Smashburger chain is based in Denver.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on twitter: @foodwriterdiary