Scoots Smashburgers Quanah

Scoots Smashburgers is the perfect place to enjoy delicious hamburgers and creative container architecture. Set in the small town of Quanah, Texas, Scoots Smashburgers is a family-owned restaurant from the owners of the 3 Guns Ranch. The 3 Guns Ranch has a hunting lodge built from two containers for visiting hunters, which was the introduction to container construction for these enterprising owners.

Now, if you’ve never heard of Quanah, it deserves an introduction. This charming town of about 2,500 people is located roughly 200 miles Northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Set in the High Plains region of Texas and founded in 1884, it was one of the first towns established in Hardeman County. And despite its small size, Quanah gets quite a bit of visitor traffic thanks to its location at the intersection of Texas Highway 6 and US Route 287.

But perhaps a more interesting note about the town is that despite its small size, there is a lot that makes Quanah quite unique. Quanah is named after Quanah Parker, regarded as the last Chief of the Commanche Native America Tribe. The city is also the home of the beautiful Copper Breaks State Park.

As far as Scoots Smashburgers, you can imagine there isn’t too much burger competition in a town of 2500 or so people. But that doesn’t mean this restaurant is resting on its laurels. On the contrary, Scoots Smashburgers serves creative new burgers with sometimes unorthodox toppings like hatch green chile, homemade chili, and other ingredients to stimulate the palates of diners. It’s enough excitement and variety to garner good reviews that pull out-of-towners into the parking lot like magnets as they travel on the highways through town.

But even if you accept that Scoots Smashburgers has great food, you may be asking why they built this restaurant in a shipping container (and more specifically, a less-common but slightly larger 53-foot container). The first reasons that come to mind are low cost and fast construction time, two hallmarks of container construction.

In addition to those reasons, there is the mobility piece that has to be factored in. Yes, Scoots Smashburgers sits just steps away from the main intersection in Quanah, but if the winds of fate ever change, it could be pretty easily relocated to a different location. Expansion is another option that could be quickly executed in the future using additional container construction.

Another great benefit of the container construction of Scoots Smashburgers is the overall aesthetics. While container buildings are certainly gaining popularity, it’s far from every day that you see a shipping container restaurant. And you certainly wouldn’t expect to see one off the beaten path in a small Texas town. That novelty certainly doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to lure drivers off the road and into the front door. An eclectic, modern feel resonates with consumers interested in sustainability, technology, and innovation and makes Scoots Smashburgers really stand out amongst other businesses in the town.

Finally, the compressed size of a container restaurant like Scoots Smashburgers encourages an intimate atmosphere inside, but also provides a subtle nudge to patrons to explore outdoor dining. Outdoor dining provides benefits to the restaurant in that it requires less capital investment for a larger store footprint and less expense to maintain. And for customers, outdoor dining exposes them further to the fabric of the town and encourages street engagement, perhaps creating a virtuous cycle of benefit for surrounding businesses.