Twelve years ago, when Seth Gross was pondering marketing strategies for his then-new Durham restaurant Bull City Burger and Brewery, he decided to borrow a tactic from the most successful food purveyor in the history of literary fiction: Willy Wonka.
“I loved the idea of golden tickets,” Gross says.
The Hunt for the Golden Bulls—a month-long scavenger hunt in which participants solve puzzles to reveal clues indicating the locations of five bull statues hidden around Durham—is now in its 13th iteration. As always, a year’s worth of free burgers are on the line.
Five puzzles will be released one-by-one on Bull City Burger’s website and social media platforms over the course of March. After a given puzzle is published, participants will be given a time window to find the physical bull statue. Each person who finds a statue will win a free beef or veggie burger, fries, and a drink every week for the next year.
In past Golden Bull hunts, clues have sometimes been encrypted in recognizable puzzle formats, like number sequences, crosswords, and Wordle grids. Oftentimes, though, puzzles are presented in more novel configurations: a TikTok dance video, for instance, or a photo of ketchup-filled ramekins. The first puzzle of 2023 comprises four written clues, though only two have been released: “Played ‘Lionel’ born in Salisbury, NC” and “Robert Osband did this.” The remaining two clues will be posted tomorrow and Saturday, and the hunt for the first statue will commence immediately afterwards.
In the years since the inaugural Hunt for the Golden Bulls, Gross says the contest has grown to be more than just a marketing strategy for his own restaurant.
“The mission is to get people on foot, walking around downtown Durham so they can come across new businesses and see how the city changes each year,” Gross says. Last year, for example, one puzzle required participants to visit Rubies on Five Points, Ideal’s Sandwich & Grocery, and Rofhiwa Book Café.
“Maybe there’s a place that people wouldn’t have normally gone to, but now that they’re looking for clues, they’re aware of it,” Gross says. “This is our way of paying it forward to the community.”
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