Bananarchy: Austin's first Arrested Development-inspired frozen-banana stand
Savannah Red
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Bananarchy co-owners Laura Anderson and Anna Notario probably won’t set fire to their cart, ignorantly burning $250,000. They didn’t steal their business idea from a hard-working Korean. Nor is their cart shaped like a “big yellow joint.” (Although there’s little doubt that a certain bleary-eyed sect of Austinites would enjoy their wares.) Anderson and Notario are just hoping that George Bluth’s oft-quoted advice—that “there’s always money in the banana stand”—proves true for Bananarchy, Austin’s first-ever frozen-banana cart.
Though both Bananarchy’s menu and spartan website promise a “dessert revolution,” inviting friends and curious newcomers to join its Facebook group to learn more about its “radical bananarchist views,” Anderson and Notario don’t really seem like revolutionaries. They’re both unfailingly nice recent UT grads, neither of whom look a day over 22, who share living space in the same co-op and a passion for entrepreneurship.
Well, that and cult TV: Last year, Notario found herself sidelined by illness for nearly a week, unable to do anything other than sit on the couch and watch DVDs of Arrested Development, Mitchell Hurwitz’s late, lamented show about a dysfunctional family of wealthy screw-ups whose unscrupulous patriarch got his start selling frozen bananas to tourists along the boardwalk.
“It was 3 a.m., and I was delusional from medicine,” Notario says. “And I had the idea to open my own banana stand.”
Many AD acolytes have probably had the same “wouldn’t that be hilarious?” idea after one too many episode marathons, and although Notario immediately started daydreaming about setting up shop along Town Lake, she too never really developed a workable business plan. It was only after a year or more of talking about it—and the addition of Anderson to the project—that the two started seriously pursuing Bananarchy.
“I think most people have great ideas all the time,” Anderson says. “But most people don’t do anything about it.”
Of course, the reason most people don’t do anything about it is that actually doing things is a lot of work. A preschool teacher and Plan II major, respectively, Notario and Anderson had never taken so much as an Intro to Business class, and their culinary knowledge was, to put it kindly, limited: Their recipe for frozen bananas—peel, freeze, dip in chocolate—was as rudimentary as it gets. Undeterred, they bought an old cart from Craigslist and set about renovating it. The status updates on their Facebook page chart Bananarchy’s long haul from concept to execution, including all the giddy highs (“There’s nothing like a dance party in Home Depot, especially when your business partner has dancing skills”) to let’s-call-the-whole-thing-off lows. (“Our freshwater tank sort of exploded today, so we couldn’t get the health inspection as planned… Do you have a pressure washer?”)
“People say, ‘Oh it’s cute. You’re opening a business,’” Notario says. “But there’s nothing cute about electrical sanding. A lot of people helped us. We had to organize it. We stained and painted and primed. It was a lot of work.”
As for the bananas themselves, well, they’ve also been significantly overhauled. More than just that simple combination of peeling, freezing, and dipping Anderson and Notario first envisioned, Bananarchy serves every banana made to order, with customers able to choose from chocolate, peanut butter, and vanilla coatings, then add endless varieties of toppings, like chopped peanuts, shredded coconut, crumbled Oreos, Nutella, cinnamon, even Reese’s Pieces. And in keeping with its “bananarchist” principles, it sources only fair-trade bananas, and puts everything on 100-percent-recyclable spoons—revolutionary, indeed.
While the stand itself isn’t modeled after the Bluth family business (which means it’s much less likely to end up at the bottom of Lady Bird Lake every Christmas, as per holiday tradition), the Bananarchy menu does pay appropriate homage: Its signature item The Gob, named for the show’s cocky failed magician played by Will Arnett, is two bananas double-dipped in chocolate and covered in peanuts, just like the real Gob always ordered.
Though Bananarchy’s grand opening was little more than a month ago, it’s already developed a steady stream of loyalists—curious fans of the TV show, yes, but also people looking for an alternative to the snow-cones and gelato that always become de rigueur in the summer months. So is there money in the banana stand? So far, which means Anderson and Notario shouldn’t have any reason to say, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
