AUSTIN, Texas — Frances “Fran” Junk, the restauranteur behind Fran’s and Dan’s Hamburgers in Austin, has died.
According to KVUE’s media partners at the Austin American-Statesman, Junk died from cancer on Nov. 27 at age 89.
Junk and her husband, Dan, opened their restaurant, Dan’s Hamburgers, on South Congress Avenue in 1973. Junk kept the restaurant and another location on Cameron Road after the couple divorced in 1991 and renamed them after herself.
A giant statue of Junk was added in 1998 and was a landmark on South Congress Avenue for Austinites until the restaurant’s demolition in 2015. The location is now a Torchy’s Tacos. Junk’s Cameron Road location also closed in 2015.
Junk was born Frances Maldonado in Cedar Creek in Bastrop County in 1934, the Statesman reports. After moving around with her family growing up, she eventually settled in East Austin.
She began her career waiting tables at El Gallo in South Austin and at the Plantation restaurant near the University of Texas. According to the Statesman, that’s where she met customer and future husband, Dan Junk, who dropped in one day for coffee.
The couple worked at King Burger on South Congress Avenue before opening Dan’s Hamburgers at 1822. S. Congress Ave.
“She was very involved in operations and she was very particular about recipes in the kitchen. The know-how was from her,” the Junks’ daughter, Katie Congdon, who owns Dan’s Hamburgers, told the Statesman. “Prepping ingredients and making the burgers. Always reminding everyone how it was originally done.”
Read Junk's full obituary on the Statesman’s website.