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Precisely 14 years after launching the Sacramento Burger Battle, Rodney Blackwell is back with a new burger concept, as well as a new takeout ordering platform designed for small food businesses.
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Plush Burger operates out of a catering kitchen in Curtis Park. Blackwell officially served their first Plush burger on Sept. 18, which not coincidentally happened to be National Cheeseburger Day.
Burgers are foundational to Blackwell’s culinary worldview. From childhood, they have enjoyed both eating and making them.
“After school, I’d come home and there were a few things that I was allowed to make in the kitchen. We had this electric griddle that my parents allowed me to use with my older siblings’ supervision. I realized how much I not only enjoyed cooking for myself, but also for my siblings. Burgers have kind of always been there as the go-to food, the safe food,” they said.
In 2009, Blackwell opened the Instagram account @burgerjunkies as a place where they could share photos and reviews of the burgers they ate both locally and around the country. This evolved into the website burgerjunkies.com, where others could submit and rate their favorite ones.
Just three years later, Blackwell launched the Sacramento Burger Battle, where 15 local restaurants went head-to-head to showcase their best burgers. A fundraiser benefitting the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the event ran for a subsequent seven years, raising over $100,000 for the charity. (It has no relation to the current American River Burger Battle.)
After a few years of photographing, reviewing and judging burgers, Blackwell started doing pop ups, serving their own creations. When Hurricane Irma caused devastation in Puerto Rico, Blackwell did one as a fundraiser. Other chefs jumped in to help.
“This was not a burger battle, but more like a burger share. First it was going to be just me cooking burgers, and then other chefs were like, ‘I’m down. I’ll cook some burgers too.’ So we ended up having half a dozen or more chefs there just sharing their burger creations. Basically we sold tickets, and folks came through and got to try all the burgers. No voting, just enjoying burgers for a good cause. And I think that moment really kind of solidified in her how important food was,” they said.
A digital marketing consultant since 1996, Blackwell is no stranger to being an entrepreneur, but when the decision was made to operate out of a brick and mortar, they decided to enroll in the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy to learn the ins and outs of running a food business. Blackwell graduated in 2025.
“I’ve just been self-taught, coming up with my ideas and running with them. But the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy gave me structure for a food business, like this is what you need to make sure you’re covering, and these are the things to watch out for and the things that you want to look out for,” they said.
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With so many years focusing on burgers, it’s no wonder Blackwell is particular about the product. Plush Burger’s “Classy Burger” ($15) begins with the patty.
“I’ve made and eaten a lot of burgers, and my preference is smash burgers. The size of them, the style of them is preferable to me. I use two three-ounce freshly ground patties from Taylor’s Market off of Freeport and smash them to not too thin, but enough that they get that beautiful Maillard browning reaction. I season with my own special blend of “magic burger dust,” and smash it to perfection with a couple slices of old-fashioned American cheese,” Blackwell said.
The burger is served with grilled onions on shokupan milk bread buns from Manzanita Bakehouse, a fellow graduate of the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy, and slathered with an umami-rich housemade black garlic sauce.
Customers should also expect a monthly “Whimsical Burger” ($20) custom creation.
“It’s either something from my Plush Burger lab or one of the experiences I’ve done on Burger Junkies, or something that I came up with on the fly based on an ingredient that seems cool that I see at the farmers market that I want to challenge myself. I’ll say, hey, can I make a burger out of that? Basically, will it burger?” Blackwell said.
For October that whimsical creation is the classic setup plus smoked pastrami from Saul’s Deli in Berkeley and some pickled lettuce for brightness.
As Blackwell got closer to launching, they realized that existing point-of-sale systems were not well suited to food businesses of their scale. Most, like DoorDash and Grubhub, charge sometimes onerous commissions on a per-order basis.
On the day of Plush Burger’s opening, Blackwell soft-launched Takeoutly, a subscription platform that allows restaurants to pay a low monthly fee for use. The revenue from each order goes directly to the restaurant. The Green Room in East Sacramento and Bacon & Butter in Tahoe Park are early adopters.
Getting a restaurant off the ground can be fraught with unexpected costs. To help Blackwell make it to the finish line, they’re crowdfunding using a somewhat unorthodox method. They’re seeking 150 initial investors, called the Plush Society Founders Club, each claiming their place by paying $1 incrementally more than the previous investor. So, the first person pledged $1, the next person at $2, and so forth, ultimately adding up to $11,325. At press time, 70 people had claimed an investor spot. The funding effort required its own custom platform, called BumpSale, also developed by Blackwell.
Plush Burger operates out of a shared catering kitchen at 2519 San Fernando Way, near the intersection of Broadway and Franklin Blvd. in Curtis Park. Because the kitchen is shared, the burger restaurant’s service is sporadic. Blackwell posts the schedule on the restaurant’s Instagram account, @plushburgers.
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This story was originally published October 16, 2026 at 6:30 AM.