Restaurants & Bars

Concord Burgerfest Fundraiser Has New Offerings For 2021: Watch

The event, in its 16th year benefitting the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, runs through Saturday; features camel, lamb, veggie offerings.

CONCORD, NH — For the 16th year, a local eatery is holding a special weeklong event to raise money for a state children's hospital.

The Barley House's Burgerfest runs through Saturday with a specialized menu and beer offerings while setting a goal of raising $16,000 for the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth. Brian Shea, who has owned the establishment for 21 years, said his father went to Dartmouth and became an orthopedic surgeon, always giving back to the community. In 2005, he wanted to do something, too. At the time, while teaming up with Fred's Fund, the restaurant raised $3,000. Each year since, the Burgerfest effort has raised more than $10,000.

This year, there are 12 new burgers, put together by Chef Jon Forbese and Shea. This is Forbese's ninth Burgerfest. Some years, he plans ahead on what he wants to do; other times, it comes together pretty quickly.

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"I like to be prepared for it," Forbese said. "At least a month out. Especially (with) supply and demand, nowadays, with COVID."

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In this video, Shea and Forbese discuss creating burgers for Burgerfest.

Shea said it was "a difficult task," especially coordinating cooks and staff, but it was worth it.

"It is hard," he said. "But that is the whole point of the fundraiser. It's a very cool menu that we could not do as a permanent thing. There is a lot of fun around it, too. Everyone is excited about it. When they get through a tough day, it kind of makes it worth it."

Checking Out The New Burgers

Patch on Monday checked out some of the new burgers.

The "Hump Day!" Burger features a camel patty — yes, that kind of camel, along with pepper jack cheese, an onion pepper relish, and lettuce and tomato. Shea said they did not want to burden the tastebuds with other flavors and, instead, allow anyone brave enough to try a camel burger to actually taste the meat.

The Beef Wellington Burger features Wagyu beef with mushroom duxelles wrapped in pastry. As a warning, it tends to be a tad on the rare side but the herb demi makes it worth it.

The Twin Hurricane Burger features beef and spicy chorizo patties with Swiss cheese, fried pickles, and honey mustard.

Other offerings include a roasted sweet potato and summer vegetable burger, a craft beer burger, a turkey and fried portobello Caprese, a diet "cheat" burger, a "G.O.A.T." burger — with lamb, kimchi mama melt, a lemon-dill salmon burger, and Thai peanut burger, too.

Most of the meat for the burgers comes from Robie Farm in Piermont.

In this video, Shea talks about the new 2021 burgers while Patch samples a few, too.

Prices in 2021 are a tad higher — inflation, fuel, and labor costs are all higher, and all of those increased costs trickle down to the base price of everything.

Local sponsors for 2021 include NH Distributors, Mason & Rich P.A., S & W Sports, Merrimack County Savings Bank, Rumford Stone, Grappone Auto Group, Baroff and Craven, Attorneys at Law, Fraser Insurance Services, Sanel NAPA Automotive Supply, Buettemann Imports, Cole Gardens, Individual Fitness, and Intuitive Touch Massage Therapy — who will be matching donations for every burger and beer sold.

Some of the drink offerings include Concord Craft Pandora’s Kettle Sour and Stoneface IPA, Jack’s Abby Blood Orange Wheat, 603 Summertime, Tuckerman’s Rockpile IPA, and Newburyport Plum Island Belgian White. There are also milkshakes, too.

"I think, when we finish up, everyone will be super proud of what we did," Shea said. "Almost regardless of the money we raise, and we end up raising quite a bit of money, it really does make a difference. We all feel good about it."

Shea has thought of putting together another charity event during another time of the year, like helping veterans, for example, something similar to Burgerfest. But, not unlike other big ideas, it has not come to fruition yet and is on the back burner.

"I'm not even sure if it would be as big as Burgerfest," he said. "It took four or five years to build up and now, we've been doing it for 16 (years). If you think about it, people have grown up with it. It's really special … so I don't think we could ever match that. But we could raise money for a very worthy cause. We just want to make sure we can pull it off."

For a complete menu for Burgerfest, check out this link. The restaurant is open from noon to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Got a news tip? Send it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella's YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel.


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