NFL burgers a touchdown for Tucson diner

For NFL fans who dine at Good Day Café on East Speedway, biting into a burger that bears the name of their favorite team is like tasting victory.

The diner-style, breakfast-and-lunch spot has been serving burgers representing each team in the National Football League, from the San Francisco 49ers to the New England Patriots, for the last four seasons.

Toppings are mostly chosen by the regional cuisine from which the teams hail, says Good Day owner Susan Duran.

The Green Bay Packers burger, for example, is layered in American, Swiss and Cheddar, to represent the state’s cheese-producing background.

Closer to home, the Arizona Cardinals burger has chorizo and egg among its ingredients.

All burgers remain on the menu until the playoffs, when they begin falling off in direct correlation to whether or not the team they represent moves forward in the postseason.

“During the playoffs, we sell more burgers than we do regular menu items,” Duran said.

The team that wins it all on Super Bowl Sunday remains in the restaurant’s rotation for the rest of the year.

“It has been wonderful for us,” Duran said. “People have been really into it. They have been posting what they’ve eaten on Facebook in support of their team. It’s been fun.”

Duran said the idea for the burgers came shortly after the restaurant opened in an unassuming strip mall on East Speedway four years ago.

“Customers were saying we needed to do something new and inventive,” Duran said. “Employees wanted to do something fun that other restaurants weren’t doing.”

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The first concept devised was to create different omelettes for different NASCAR drivers, but “we didn’t have enough ingredients for the omelettes,” Duran said. “We were putting in things that were funky and weird, that weren’t selling.”

NFL hamburgers allowed for more freedom.

Duran said most dedicated NFL burger fans will try the burger that represents their team first, then choose other burgers with toppings more to their liking.

Shane Davis, a regular visitor to Good Day Café, has tried them all.

“I thought it was a pretty cool concept,” said Davis, who is partial to the Detroit Lions burger, served complete with a triple order of bacon and American cheese.

“They actually put some thought into each burger and the foods specific to that region,” Davis said.

Duran is a Dallas Cowboys fan, but all burgers are made with equal attention and love, she said.

There is no team bias here.

“We tried to be forthright and do the best we could with all of them,” she said.

The regular NFL season begins today.