Thursday is National Hamburger Day, and if you’re looking for somewhere to celebrate this most American holiday and maybe challenge your digestive system at the same time, T’Beaux’s Blues Le Roux may be the place for you.

With a hole-in-the-wall, festive atmosphere, T’Beaux’s is known for its Cajun style food and BBQ, but lurking in the shadows – and usually passed over by the gastronomically faint of heart – is the restaurant’s daunting Swamp Monster Challenge.

The challenge, which was conceived by co-owner Perry Boyd’s wife Donna, is derived from the recipe for their popular Swamp Burger but with a vast increase in mass. The Swamp Monster is three one-pound beef patties, mushrooms, bacon, cheese, two Rotella buns, and a pound of French fries, all washed down with a 20-ounce drink.

“It’s a lot of meat,” Perry said. “It’s a really good burger, a lot of people love the swamp burgers. It’s not something for us to make profit off of, but it’s probably more of a way to promote our food.”

Perry and co-owner Jamie Ray instituted the challenge at the prompting of Donna when the restaurant opened in 2013 because there didn’t seem to be any challenges of that type in the Vicksburg area.

They gave Donna the go-ahead to come up with the challenge and the rules to go with it.

The rules are fairly simple, if not easy to follow. A competitor has to finish the entire meal, burger, fries, drink and all, in 30 minutes, then “digest” for another 30 minutes. The competitor can’t leave the table at any time, and it is strictly a one-person challenge. If you fail, you pay $35 for the meal and go on your way, but if you defeat the Swamp Monster, you get a free meal, a T’Beaux’s t-shirt and eternal glory (read: your picture) on the Swamp Monster Challenge Wall of Fame.

“It was her idea all the way to do a challenge,” Perry said. “With her genius of thinking she made the rules and everything. It’s been a good promotion for us.”

Although almost 20 attempts have been made against the four-and-a-half pound Monster, only one person’s picture currently hangs on the wall.

Vicksburg native Brian Pugh completed the beast of a challenge in February 2014 in about 27 minutes.

Pugh, who works as a product support engineer, isn’t a competitive eater but he eats a lot on a regular basis, he said. When it comes to the Swamp Monster, there isn’t much technique that can help besides just chewing and swallowing as quickly as possible for 30 minutes.

“I don’t have many talents, but eating is one of them,” he said. “It helps when the food’s really good, and I haven’t found a hamburger that’s better than theirs.

“We’ve had 17 tries and he’s the only one that has succeeded, and he did it with no problem,” Perry said. “Everybody else usually has one or two pounds of food left on their plate, if not three. He wiped it out like it was nothing.”

Most people who make attempts against the Monster are your blue-collar types, Perry said, but anybody is welcome to give it a shot.

“Come out and try your hand at it,” he said.