Bonnie Shea spent years just trying to make sure her mother’s story didn’t disappear. Patty Lou Peters fronted an all-female western swing band called Patty Lou and the Texas Sweethearts back in the 1940s and 50s, back when female touring groups almost never existed. They piled into a convertible and drove routes stretching from Chicago to California, playing gigs along the way. Shea wanted people to know who her mother was. So she built her a restaurant.
Patty Lou’s Smashburgers just opened in old downtown Plano, in a space that most recently held a Starbucks, and almost everything in it points back to Patty Lou somehow. There’s a road map mural tracing her actual touring route. Her original guitar sits on display alongside other memorabilia. A jukebox mixes old and new country. Interactive QR codes let guests pull up more of her story while they wait on their order.
Shea has said her goal for years was simply making sure her mother wasn’t forgotten, and that watching guests walk in, hear the music, and learn who Patty Lou was has meant more to her than she expected.
Shea and her husband Nathan run the restaurant together as the newest concept from their company, Urban Family Concepts, which also owns Urban Crust, Urban Rio Cantina & Grill, and Urban Seafood Company. Nathan handles the burger side, made from never-frozen wagyu off the family’s own Black Gold Ranch. He’s said the whole process is old-fashioned, start to finish, right down to how each patty gets smashed…