Welcome Back to Revue’s Annual Poll
Now in its 9th year, this celebration of people, places and businesses across West Michigan is on the precipice of the double digits. What’s remarkable after all these years is that interest in Best of the West seemingly hasn’t waned at all. Instead, we get more participation every year!
That’s even as we’ve made changes to suit the times. For instance, who would have ever imagined when this began in 2016 that we’d someday drop the New Brewery category? But with seemingly no eligible competitors from the past year, we have apparently hit market saturation (although, Muskegon Brewing Company opened doors last month, and is well worth a trip).
Last year, we also did away with the rankings of 2nd and 3rd place, to just have a winner and two finalists (listed alphabetically). We hope this helps remove the minor stigma of a bronze medal—all the finalists you see listed here beat out dozens of other nominees in each of their categories, so it doesn’t seem fair to mark any of them as “last place” out of the top three.
If you missed the voting, here’s how it worked: The first round was for open nominations, meaning anyone could write in absolutely whoever they wanted, as long as they were local and fit the category. Then, we tallied up all those nominations and came out with a top three for every category. In the second round, readers simply voted for their favorites out of those groups of three!
This year, we did remove a few categories, but also added multiple to help spread the love beyond Grand Rapids (where many, but certainly not all, of our readers live). We introduced the “Best Restaurant in…” and “Best Bar in…” categories for various cities around West Michigan, including Grand Haven, Holland, Kalamazoo/Portage, Muskegon, and Saugatuck/Fennville. Quite frankly, it’s something we should have done much sooner, but hopefully this helps shine a spotlight on favorites all around.
One important aspect that returned this year is the Golden Certificate, awarded to the nominee who garnered the most votes overall across all categories and both rounds. The first two years were won by Long Road Distillers, but in a narrow upset, this year’s winner of the Golden Certificate is City Built Brewing Co. Congratulations on all the support from our readers!
Whether you’re a winner, a finalist, a voter or a Staff Pick, Best of the West is for you. We do this to celebrate all the incredible people who make West Michigan special, and to help guide new readers to the most beloved establishments in town. Now, all that’s left to do is get out there and check them out. Cheers!
