For most of the crowd gathered there Sunday afternoon, the birthday bash at Spiral Diner was about celebrating three years of vegan eating in the always-friendly Oak Cliff spin-off, but for Mario Sanchez it was about something else entirely: "Retribution."
That was the word on Sanchez's lips moments after he downed 21 vegan pancakes in five minutes, putting an end to a nightmare that began two years ago, at Spiral's first contest, when he lost by just half a pancake, after three overtime rounds, to a trash-talking interloper named Eric Mason.
This time around, Sanchez wasn't leaving anything to chance, charging out the gate with four cakes stuffed into his mouth at once. Even by out-doing his 17-cake performance last year, defending champion James Magruder hardly stood a chance.
Magruder finished with 19 pancakes in the tense five-minute bout, runner-up in a field of about a dozen hungry vegans and vegan-friendly eaters.
Check out more photos from the contest here in our slideshow.
