Not sure if y’all have heard about this, but there’s a street fight a brewing on 6th St. Not the usual drunken fight over a girl or rappers shooting up a club. Alas, this is a fight that attacks Austin’s belly. More, via Statesman blogs:

A sidewalk turf dispute is creating a gulf between two East Sixth Street food businesses that operate within feet of each other.

The fine-dining restaurant Parkside is opposing the renewal of a permit allowing the Best Wurst food cart to operate on the sidewalk outside Parkside.

Jon Notarthomas has owned Best Wurst since the mid-’90s…

Notarthomas’ permit, which expired in mid-June, is being extended until the city investigates Parkside’s complaints…

Those complaints are enumerated in letters to the city by Parkside chef-owner Shawn Cirkiel and his parents, Martin and Pamela Cirkiel, who own the building at 301 E. Sixth St.

Their complaints include contentions that the cart violates space restrictions, sells similar products, attracts crowds that leave debris and block the sidewalk and that it will conflict with Parkside’s balcony, construction of which is scheduled to begin later this month. Notarthomas disagrees with those contentions.

The conflict has spilled onto the Interwebs, with bulletin boards, boycotts and a Facebook group with almost 3000 members at time of writing. And while some may think the first discussion began back in March on Yelp, this culinary contest dates back a lot further–1982 to be exact. In fact, the timeless conflict of Wurst vs Chef was first noted in the classic 80′s arcade game Burger Time.

For those of you not familiar with the game, the premise is quite simple: A chef is trying to make a burger, but his efforts are attacked by a hot dog, a pickle and an egg–all of whom are trying to kill him. And if history has any lessons to teach, Parkside’s Chef Shawn Cirkiel can learn a thing or two from Burger Time on how to defeat Best Wurst. From Wikipedia:

While making burgers, Peter Pepper must deal with three enemies: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Enemies can be dodged, killed, or temporarily stunned. Killing occurs when an ingredient is dropped atop an enemy, or when support for an ingredient is completely removed and the enemy falls with the piece.

Peter Pepper has pepper shots to shake on nearby enemies to stun and render them harmless for a few seconds. Extra shots are obtained by collecting bonus foods, such as coffee, an ice cream cone, or french fries, which appear in the center of the maze when a certain number of ingredients have dropped.

Sooo…out of all of that, Shawn should extract these tips on how to beat Best Wurst:

• After the new balcony is built, Parkside should drop giant burger patties, lettuce, tomatoes and buns onto Best Wurst. If Burger Time teaches us anything, it’s that this is the ONLY way to truly kill the giant Hot Dogs PLUS, you get points!!
• If Best Wurst (or its customers) get a little feisty, just blow pepper on them and run! This will render them mometarily harmless.
• Look out for any pickle vendors (Katz’s fried pickles?!) and egg vendors (breakfast taco stands?!) that might join forces with Best Wurst.
• But you’re in luck: With SEVERAL Belgian fry trailers sprouting up downtown, you should be able to easily get more stunning pepper shots.
• Expect a long battle. As with most 80′s arcade games, just when you think you’ve completed one round, there’s a harder level with more enemies right around the corner.

If Parkside is a locally-owned restaurant with one store and Best Wurst is a locally-owned food cart with TWO locations, which is the under dog?

How will the owners of each restaurant prove their Austin authenticity/weirdness?

If Shawn’s family has been in Austin since the 1940′s but Best Wurst has been operating at that corner for almost 20 years, who is ‘old Austin’ and who is ‘new Austin’?

Are foodies destroying 6th St?

Is it true that the only way to handle a giant weiner is by smashing it between buns?

If you could only ‘save’ one, which would it be: The Cathedral of Junk, the Cactus Cafe or Best Wurst?

.

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