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There’s a new burger spot coming to downtown Austin from Sushi by Scratch Restaurants chef Phillip Frankland Lee and pro skateboarder Neen Williams. Not a Damn Chance Burger will serve out of Idle Hands at 85 Rainey Street starting on Thursday, October 6.
Not a Damn Chance Burger will serve one kind of burger — a double smash patty with pickled jalapenos — and fries. The burger uses beef from Texas ranch Iron Table Wagyu and seasoning from Williams’s spice company, NADC, which he developed specifically for this project. The burgers will be served out of a back window at Idle Hands.
According to a press release, Williams and Frankland Lee bonded over shared interests in skateboarding and seasonings and have served the burgers at private events in anticipation of launching the project. Not a Damn Chance will open at 6 p.m. every night.
Not a Damn Chance is not the first smash burger project on Rainey — that honor belongs to the wildly popular and award-winning Bad Larry Burger Club from Better Half owner Matthew Bolick, which still pops up intermittently.
This is just one of many projects in the pipeline for Frankland Lee. Since splitting from Sushi|Bar last year, he and his wife, Margarita Kallas Lee, have opened two expansions of their California restaurants in Austin: Pasta|Bar, an expansion of their Michelin-starred Los Angeles restaurant, and Sushi by Scratch Restaurants, with a similar concept to Sushi|Bar. They’re also working on a high-end sushi restaurant in Dripping Springs, Shokunin, and are opening two new locations of Sushi by Scratch Restaurants in Miami and Seattle.
Lee (a Top Chef contestant) and Kallas-Lee (an Eater Young Gun 2016 semifinalist) opened their first restaurant Scratch|Bar & Kitchen in Beverly Hills in 2013. They popped up in Austin at Bento Picnic starting in December 2020, made the location permanent in August, and then split to start Sushi by Scratch Restaurants.
Update, Thursday, October 6, 11:10 a.m.: This article has been updated to include the opening date, correct the name of Scratch | Bar & Kitchen, and clarify the original locations of Lees’s two restaurants.
