Danny’s Pizza snags Downtown Madness bragging rights

Elgin Public House lost its title as the Downtown Madness champion Thursday as Danny’s Pizza claimed the traveling trophy.

The Elgin Downtown Neighborhood Association social media contest pitted signature dishes and drinks from downtown restaurants and bars against their “crosstown” rivals in a four-round competition tied entirely to online voting. The turkey avocado BLT from Elgin Public House beat other downtown dishes in hotly contested early rounds before losing to the sausage and pepperoni pizza from Danny’s Pizza.

The final round came down to 96 votes out of about 2,600 cast.

Greg Shannon, owner of Elgin Public House, said he would have liked to keep the trophy but felt good about the contest and the buzz it created among his customers.

“Social media marketing is such a new and great way to go,” Shannon said. “Being able to reach out to your customers is the best part of this.”

Danny’s Pizza owner Jerry Dalton II said his family’s business has won best pizza competitions in Elgin for a long time. The restaurant opened 27 years ago and all four generations from the original owners to their great grandchildren helped push online voting for the DNA’s competition.

Now the pizza place has another title to defend for future matchups.

Jason Pawlowski, DNA promotions coordinator, said 6,500 votes were cast throughout the entire competition, tripling last year’s totals. He hopes to broaden the playing field to 64 competitors, more directly mirroring the NCAA March Madness tournament. Already the competition expanded in its second year to include businesses outside of the downtown.

“We thought that model would be successful because, really, it’s all about engaging Elgin,” Pawlowski said.

Vote totals from each round are available at downtownelgin.blogspot.com.