Where does Iowa's ‘Best Burger' of 2025 hail from?
The winner of this year's contest is from Pleasantville in Marion County. Halftime Bar & Grill beat out nearly 400 other Iowa restaurants vying for the top spot in the annual contest.
The announcement was made on Thursday on the Iowa Beef Industry Council's website.
Halftime Bar & Grill is owned by the DeHeer family, who opened the restaurant a little more than two years ago in a location that formerly housed Frosty's. Kathy DeHeer worked at Frosty's and when the owners decided to retire, they approached her about buying the restaurant.
Kathy convinced her husband, Kevin, and their children, Amanda and Tyler DeHeer, to go into business together, and that's how Halftime Bar & Grill was born.
'I had always wanted to run a café,' said Kathy. 'I talked with Amanda, who also worked part-time for Frosty's, to see if she wanted to be a part of it too. We both kind of had this restaurant dream, so we thought, why not?'
Halftime Bar & Grill sources its beef from a local meat locker. Its all-beef patties are 8 oz. of fresh beef — it's never frozen. They have nine different burgers on the menu, but the Iowa Best Burger judges mentioned a fan-favorite Humpback Burger, an all-beef patty topped with ham, pepper jack cheese, bacon, and sautéed onions drizzled with Halftime's smoky house sauce.
'People kept telling us that we should enter the contest and that our burgers are the best thing ever,' said Kathy. 'When the contest started, we had regulars say that we were going to be number one. Making the Top 10 was our goal, and winning was just icing on the cake.'
Halftime Bar & Grill is located at 107 N Jefferson St. in Pleasantville. The hours are 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.
The other finalists for Iowa's Best Burger this year were:
The Road House in Orange City
Burger & Company in Spirit Lake
Dan's Road House in Cresco
Big Head Burger in Waterloo
Arcadia in Polk City
Salsa Guy Cafe in Cedar Rapids
Wilder in Iowa City
Smash & Grab Burger Co. in Knoxville
Lewis and Lewis in Oskaloosa
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