Competitive-eating legend Takeru Kobayashi shows of his stomach after devouring 89 Krystal burgers in 8 minutes.

Sorry for not posting on Friday, but we have a legit excuse.  We were busy escorting Takeru Kobayashi, the three-time Krystal Square Off Champion, around Birmingham for various media interviews.  He was in town for Saturday’s Alabama Krystal Square Off Qualifier, but prior to the competition, the local FOX, CBS and ABC affiliates all wanted to sit down with the eating legend.

You can check out Kobayashi’s appearance on FOX’s Good Day Alabama here.  Also, special thanks to Mika, a lovely UAB student who served as our translator and helped make the day possible - thanks Mika!

Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s recap this weekend’s competition in Birmingham.  As you know,  Kobayashi was in town to compete in his first Krystal-eating contest since the 2006 finals.

And he did not disappoint.

He devoured 89 Krystals in eight minutes, setting a new qualifying record for the Krystal Square Off.  He plowed through 20 in the first minute alone and began experimenting with technique and slowing down in the last two minutes, as he held a firm lead over the other competitors.

While this is impressive within itself, according to the Krystal Square Off blog, Kobayashi reportedly ate over 100 Krystals in less than eight minutes the night before the contest.  Umm….watch out  Joey Chestnut, sounds like Kobayashi may be ready to reclaim his title in Chattanooga this Sunday.

Yesterday, the final qualifying event for the Krystal Square Off V took place at the Mid-South Fair in Memphis. We’ll bring you those final results later this afternoon or tomorrow a.m.  We promise.

For now, enjoy some pics of the Krystal Square Off event in Birmingham by clicking here.

Zakk 'The Guru of Gristle' Tyler of Atlanta's Dave FM

Earlier this month, Zakk Tyler of The Zakk Tyler Morning Show on Dave FM in Atlanta competed against Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough and “Super Paul Bone Breaker Big Mouth Barlow” (two Krystal hamburger competitive eaters) in a bacon eating contest.

Apparently, Tyler is a huge fan of bacon and wanted to compete head-to-head against the pros to see who could guzzle down the most gristle.

You can watch a video of the contest over at CBS 46 and Fox Good Day Atlanta, as both were in-studio to cover the contest. You can also check out Tyler’s blog here.

The results are what you’d expect with Yarbrough taking first, Super Paul coming in second and Tyler finishing last.

However, despite his poor showing, we’re wondering if Tyler has been bitten with the competitive eating bug. If so, he has some time to practice before qualifying for the Krystal Square Off V begins.

In fact Tyler, if you are interested, we can probably arrange to have some bacon put on those Krystal burgers for you. Just let us know.

*photo courtesy of Dave FM

On a side note: Congrats to Jason Jennette who correctly guessed the Krystal dot logo was used from 1978 to 1981 or ‘82(ish). Jason, we’ll have our intern dig through our closet for some swag to send you.

We Krystalists like to travel… a lot. And perhaps one of the reasons we like to travel so much is because traveling means dining out.

So while searching for restaurant options on a recent trip, we stumbled across TripSmarter.com, an information resource site for travelers to the Southeast. Not only does the site provide overviews of cities such as Atlanta, New Orleans, Destin, Fla., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., it also offers restaurant recommendations as well as reviews and even videos, so you can learn everything you need to know about a particular restaurant before you arrive.

While playing around on the site, we happened to stumble across a video for the Krystal on Bourbon St. in New Orleans. The video promotes the company’s BreakFEAST platter - which is a custom breakfast that comes with three eggs (to order), bacon or sausage, hash browns or grits and a biscuit or toasts for only $5.99.

We thought this was a great travel tip for anyone heading to the Big Easy in the future, as you’re sure to grow tired of eating beignets every morning. Plus, you never know who you’ll run into at the famous Krystal location.

So check out the video below, and check out TripSmarter.com if you’re traveling in the Southeast.

We’re not sure where these commercials are running, but if you live anywhere near The Volunteer State, you’ve probably seen one of the new Tennessee Vacation commercials.

The commercial we saw features country music singer-songwriter Kix Brooks telling his Tennessee Story. At the end of the commercial, Brooks says “That’s my Tennessee Story, what’s yours?” Wait. What?

Upon hearing those words we almost choked on our Banana Pudding MilkQuake. So, thanks to our DVR, we rewound.

Yup. That’s what he said alright.

Ummm, that sounds oddly familiar don’t you think? (For those of you scratching your head, our Krystal commercials have ended with “That’s our Krystal story, what’s yours?” for sometime now.)

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so thanks tnvacation.com, we’re glad you liked our commercials. And because Krystal calls the great state of Tennessee home, perhaps we can work on a “That’s my Krystal AND Tennessee story, what’s yours?” commercial.

Click here for the tnvacations.com commercial, and watch one of our Krystal Lovers commercials below.

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Samuel L. Jackson kicked off his acting career by appearing in a Krystal commercial in 1975. In fact, Jay Leno surprised Jackson in 2005 by tracking down a copy of the commercial and showing it to him while he was a guest on The Tonight Show.

After watching the commercial twice, Jackson said, “That commercial validated my being an actor to my mom and all her friends, ’cause all those years I was gone, I was doing theater, they’d go, ‘You say you’re an actor, well why don’t you go apply for one of those jobs on a soap opera?’ Like you could just go and make an application or something! And then when this came on, my mom’s phone blew up.”

Glad we could help Mr. Jackson.

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