WARREN, Mich. – Vote 4 The Best is Local 4′s hunt for the best of the best across Metro Detroit and this year, it will be a little different.
Instead of asking viewers to vote for the best businesses in the area, Local 4 wanted viewers to vote on which businesses have done a fantastic job adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic and are giving back to their communities.
City Burger in Warren closed in March and when they reopened a month later, it looked like making enough money to stay afloat would be difficult.
“Before the pandemic, we’d have a full house in here Monday through Friday,” said owner Moe Barjaoui. “But we had to go to 25% so instead of having 15 tables open, we had three or four.”
But it turned out it was the opposite. Owners Moe and Abbas Barjaoui said they were selling more burgers than they ever had before.
“The amount of support we got during the pandemic was unreal,” Abbas Barjaoui said.
Instead of holding onto the extra income, the owners decided to give back and donated lunches to frontline workers at Ascension St. John Hospital in Warren.
Once word got out, customers called City Burger to find out how they can help. Lunch donations spread out to other hospitals in Detroit, Troy and across Metro Detroit.
Moe and Abbas Barjaoui’s willingness to give is what stood out to our editors at Local 4. That’s why this year -- for the first time ever -- we’ve picked special pandemic categories for our Vote 4 the Best competition.
Other winners included Red Hook Cafe in Ferndale, Bea’s Detroit and Mod Market in Northville.
Editor’s Pick is different from our main Vote 4 The Best contest. To see the winners of our main contest click here. To see the winners of the pets edition click here.
Our Sponsor -- We’d like to thank Wallside Windows for their longtime sponsorship of Vote 4 the Best and their support of southeast Michigan’s local businesses. Wallside is a Taylor, MI-based family business that manufactures and installs custom replacement windows, now in their third generation.
in addition to our main contest and the pets edition, we created our special Editors Pick edition of Vote 4 The Best.