FOOD & DRINK

Menu full of memories

As Frisco Shop prepares to move, longtime customers recall a rich history

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, April 18, 2008

Times change, and no one is quicker to admit that than John and Pinky McKetta.

When the young married couple moved to Austin in 1946, the northern edge of the city was marked by 45th Street. When they bought a lot on what is now Tortuga Trail, they were the first to move to that area of the now-crowded Lake Austin shoreline. They paid $9,600 for three acres; today land in that area sells for more than $1 million an acre.

There has been one steady thing in their lives, though: They have eaten regularly at the Frisco Shop — the last location of the famed Night Hawk restaurants chain — since it first opened in 1953 on the corner of Burnet Road and Koenig Lane. For decades, Saturday lunch at the Frisco has been a weekly ritual for the McKettas.

But now, even that familiar environment is about to disappear.

The 1950s-style diner, with booths squeezed so closely together it's obvious our collective girth was smaller a half-century ago, will close in early May and be demolished to make way for a Walgreens pharmacy. Fortunately for the McKettas and other longtime fans, the spirit of the Frisco Shop will live on. Its staff and food are moving this spring 10 blocks north into the building once occupied by Curra's Grill at 6801 Burnet Road.

That pleases John McKetta, 92, and Pinky McKetta — "She's 39 for the 49th time," he quickly notes (you do the math).

"The service is great, the food is wonderful and I think the pies are out of this world," he says.

Although the restaurant has a wide menu and McKetta can enthusiastically pitch a plate of Frisco enchiladas to a restaurant critic who has never had them (he insists they are the best in town), John and Pinky McKetta rarely vary their standard order of recent years.

They dine each Saturday at lunch on the Frisco burger and a slice of coconut cream icebox pie.

But even there, the years have finally produced change. "We each used to eat a whole hamburger," Pinky McKetta says. Now they divide a burger and a slice of pie.

Paying with pennies

In many circles, John McKetta is far more famous than the Frisco. The professor emeritus and former dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas is one of UT's biggest and most unabashed fans; just look at the Longhorn stickers he sports on the front, back and sides of his car. His former students occupy positions of power in commerce and science throughout the world.

At the Frisco, though, he's famous for something else: his bag of "Texas pennies."

McKetta used to be a collector of all types of American coins, putting together sets for his grandchildren from the early 1800s until the year they were 20.

Now he limits his collecting to 50-cent pieces, regularly getting bags of the coins and sifting through them in search of bicentennial half-dollars and ones from the years of his grandchildren's birth.

"The bicentennial is not rare, but it's hard to find," he says.

After he has gleaned the coins he wants from the latest stash, he carries the remaining half-dollars in a small leather bag marked "marbles."

At the Frisco, he's been known to give them away to the grandchildren and — more likely — the great-grandchildren of his friends, neighbors and colleagues who have been dining there for decades, too. He asks the kids whether they'd like a "Texas penny."

He also uses them for the tip and to pay the bill, stacking them neatly for the waitress, inevitably one the McKettas know by name and who knows their regular Saturday order in return.

A storied history

To understand and appreciate what the Frisco represents, you have to go back well before it opened, to the 1930s, the decade that launched the career of Austin's most famous restaurateur, Harry Akin.

A vendor selling cider from under an umbrella on Congress Avenue, Akin moved indoors when a nearby building opened up. He put burgers on the menu and opened the original Night Hawk on Christmas Eve 1932, with a counter, two booths and eight secondhand stools.

It was a big success, eventually spawning a local chain of establishments, including opening the Frisco Shop on Burnet in 1953, as well as a profitable frozen food business.

But that was only part of Akin's accomplishments. He also was responsible for one of the most important acts of social change in the city. In April 1959, nearly a decade before he would become mayor, Akin became the first white restaurateur to serve Austin's black citizens.

Akin died in 1976, before the demise of his Night Hawk empire that fell victim to changing times and the fast-food phenomenon.

The one piece left of that cultural and culinary history is the Frisco Shop, owned in recent years by Akin's nephew, Harry Akin, his wife, Julia, and Lawrence Baker.

Frisco future

The Frisco will vacate its building at 5819 Burnet Road the second week of May. Julia Akin says she hopes to open in the rebuilt Curra's spot up the street in late May.

The lone remaining Night Hawk restaurant's ownership circle is expanding with the move. Radio personality Bob Cole and business partner Stan Miller, who operate the Tavern and Hill's Cafe, are joining in the new Frisco venture.

The restaurant will be larger, with seating for 140 compared with 100, with more spacious booths and many more free-standing tables that can accommodate larger groups, such as families. The decor will be less diner and more restaurant, Julia Akin says.

"We want it to feel like a Night Hawk restaurant, not so much a diner like this is," she says.

Although that ambience will be different, the menu's mainstays, staff and management will remain. But don't be surprised if a few old Night Hawk dishes show up on the new Frisco menu, Akin says.

In the end, though, it's location that counts.

"I'm thrilled to be able to stay on Burnet Road," Akin says. "I love this neighborhood. This is what defines the Frisco Shop."

Feasting with humor

Over the usual lunch of burger and pie, the McKettas reflect further on the rapid change that overtook Austin.

There was giant growth even as they moved here. UT had 9,400 students in 1945. By 1946, when John McKetta joined the faculty, it had 14,600 students.

Even though they dine most nights at Westminster Manor, where they now live, they still eat out a lot. But you are not likely to find the couple dining in the new Second Street entertainment and shopping district.

"I won't go downtown," he says. "I can't stand the traffic."

To help deal with the altered street scene and loss of familiar landmarks, the McKettas recently installed a Global Positioning System in their car. But what does John McKetta do as he's driving home from a restaurant (they often breakfast at places such as IHOP or Denny's) to the direction of the electronic voice? He purposely turns the other way, forcing the contraption to urge an immediate u-turn as it notes it is "recalculating" the directions.

They laugh. Clearly this is a source of amusement.

As the McKettas talk about change, they are subject not to remorse but to good-natured reflection.

They recount how Perry Lane, where they lived before Tortuga Trail, was literally the edge of town when they moved there — the city annexed it the week after they moved in. In the midst of that recollection, McKetta, out of the blue and without missing a beat, looked across the Frisco booth at his wife of 65 years and said, with a smile that couldn't get any broader, "God, you're getting old."

"All by myself," she retorted, a gentle, knowing smile echoing a life of change and stability.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859

Frisco Shop
5819 Burnet Road
459-6279
www.thefriscoshop.com
Hours: 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. every day