FOOD/DRINK

'Mr. Top Notch' known for secret recipe, organizing skills

By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 14, 2008

Nearly four decades ago, when 12-year-old James Stanish took his first job at the Top Notch, his father paid him 50 cents a day to bus tables.

Now, after dying unexpectedly in his sleep Sunday at the age of 50, he takes with him the closely held recipe to the special sauce that tops the restaurant's famous charcoal-grilled burgers.

The Burnet Road restaurant - immortalized in "Dazed and Confused," the 1993 Richard Linklater movie filmed in Austin - is now closed. And Stanish's family, which owns the drive-in and sit-down burger joint, say they are unsure when - or if - it will reopen.

"He was Mr. Top Notch," Frances Stanish , his mother, said. "He made the orders. He did the cooking. If the faucet dripped, he fixed the faucet. He was the backbone of this place."

The family said it does not know the cause of death and is awaiting autopsy results.

As manager, James Stanish was meticulous about everything, say his relatives, keeping handwritten records of supplies with the kind of penmanship that would make a schoolteacher glow.

"We just don't know what we're going to do," said his sister Janet Stanish-Knue , who serves as a cashier and assistant manager. "We can't run it without him."

"We would need five people to replace him," another sister, Joan Tucker , said.

But Stanish also carved out time to have fun. Decades ago, money from that first Top Notch job went to buying a scooter. As an adult he loved to hunt and drive sports cars and had recently bought a new red Corvette to keep his pair of Camaros company. Just over two weeks ago, on his birthday , he took his nieces and nephews for rides.

The Stanish family has owned Top Notch since the early 1970s, and a colorful sign out front still trumpets the "Dining Room" and "Curb Service." The restaurant has a loyal following - on Thursday a couple came up from South Austin to get a burger - and someone had scrawled "Please don't close" onto a sign on the door that announced Stanish's death.

Stanish was also a loyal customer, downing a Longhorn special - double meat with cheese and special sauce - virtually every day for lunch, washed down with a large glass of iced tea.

Grilling the hamburgers over charcoal "as the aromas that fill even the parking lot will attest, imparts a flavor to Top Notch's burgers that is hard to match outside your own backyard," former American-Statesman food critic Dale Rice wrote in 2005 . The fried chicken "was as crisp and nonoily as the onion rings, with juicy, tender, flavorful meat beneath that golden crust."

Stanish is survived by his mother; his sisters; a brother, Joseph Stanish ; and his fiancée, Nora Casas .

A Mass celebrating his life is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at St. Louis Catholic Church 7601 Burnet Road, not far from Top Notch.

asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643