64 sandwiches. 8 categories. 1 champion.

The Sarah Baker Hansen food bracket is back for 2026 and with your help, we’re going to name Omaha and Lincoln’s favorite sandwich.

This year, Sarah split the bracket into eight sandwich categories: Reubens, Chicken sandwiches, French dips, Phillys, Gyros, Breakfast sandwiches, Deli sandwiches and Banh Mis. Each category will get a winner, which then goes head-to-head against another category favorite.

Reader feedback helped order the restaurants in each category, and your vote will decide the winners in each round.

Sandwich Bracket 2026 Winner - Dirty Birds - Sandwich: The OG

Note: Sandwich Bracket voting ended April 6, 2026.

Sandwich Bracket 2026 - Printable bracket

BRACKET DETAILS

CONTEST RULES

  1. Voting dates
    Round 1 voting: March 16-19
    Round 2: March 20-23
    Sweet 16: March 23-25
    Elite 8: March 25-29
    Final Four: March 29-April 1
    Championship: April 1-6
  2. The bracket allows one vote per matchup per round. You can vote for each of the 32 matchups in the first round, for example, but you can’t vote 20 times in a row for your favorite sandwich place. The voting software won’t allow it.
  3. You must share your name and a working email address to vote. If you enter a fake email address, we’ll delete your votes.

By Sarah Baker Hansen

Sarah Baker Hansen launched her own food website covering the food scene of her hometown, Omaha, in 2020. She works as the Director of Public & Media Relations at Emspace + Lovgren. For eight years, she was the food critic at the Omaha World-Herald. She started the periodic Food Prowl series, wherein she created teams of tasters and found favorites in a number of categories. The series resulted in close to 40 “best of Omaha” winners, including Reuben, fried chicken, ice cream and more. She won a 2015 Great Plains Journalism Award for best review and a 2017 Great Plains Journalism Award for best feature.

25 Comments

It’s chef chovy here voting for the best reuben
Cottonwood all the way
We ferment our own sauerkraut, make our own 1000 island sauce and brine our briskets all the way for over a week then braise
Everyone else is skimping out on those details I’ve tried them all!

I will NEVER understand how the Crescent Moon reuben could be considered REMOTELY good. It’s a flattened sandwich with no flavor. I have periodically checked in over the decades and have had to order a bowl of 1000 Island to dip the sandwich in due to its lack of flavor. Oddly, M’s Pub has the same type of a flat, worthless reuben. Of course I like mine the most, as does anyone who tries mine (definitely bragging), but The Cottonwood is not even comparable to the crap at Crescent Moon. We have this discussion on Omaha Food Lover’s Uncensored page because Omaha Food Lover’s is run by a a person who only credits restaurants that worship him and give him free food. I’m sorry that you didn’t win this bracket.

Dirty Birds makes everything in house from the fry flour mix, our milk bread the pickles… every little thing. We stay ten toes down every day even when we are closed we are here working for you. So please give us all your dirty little votes! As always ~ stay dirty out there my friends

Drove from Idaho and today I tasted the most delicious pancakes and chicken!! Insanely delicious!! Thanks you Dirty Bird

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