"I just feel like they're going to do another 39 years of good stuff, just like we did."įrances Stanish knows about family business. "These people are all family people, too," she said.
The decision became easier when she found out that Chappell had celebrated birthdays as a kid at the Top Notch among the red vinyl chairs and the mingled aromas of charcoal and deep fryers. "I would like to stay in here until I'm 100. The decision to sell was motivated in part by her health. She's stayed behind the counter since then, frail with cancer but insistent on handling the order-taking, even as the new owners trained with her, all of them seasoned restaurant veterans. I don't want to sell it because I want Top Notch to go on.' " Customers begged the family to stay open.įrances Stanish said she had little choice. Their son James took over, but when he died in 2008, the future of the restaurant was in doubt. Stanish started Top Notch at 7525 Burnet Road in 1971 with her husband, Ray, who died in 2004. We're going to keep it a family-run business," said Kelly Chappell, the core of the ownership team that includes his wife, Leslie, along with her brother, Phillip Santa Cruz, and his wife, Amber. "It's been a family-run business for 39 years. That's what we love about our burger places.
Top notch hamburgers menu movie#
Richard Linklater's 1993 movie comes up a lot when people talk about Top Notch. Not the menu, not the staff and definitely not the sky-high marquee made famous in "Dazed and Confused." The new owners - two families within the company that owns Austin's three Galaxy Cafes and Zocalo - don't plan to change a thing. The Austin hamburger stand Top Notch has been sold. After 39 years of charcoal-grilled burgers and honey-blond fried chicken, 74-year-old Frances Stanish is handing over her order pad.
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