Is Pop's Burger Stand in Waxahachie Deserving of its Best Burger in North Texas Nod?

About a decade ago, Lee Edwards opened a small hamburger joint in Waxahachie with his sons Mason and Ben. Pop’s Burger Stand has been going strong since, and while the sons are responsible for the day-to-day operations, “Pop” Edwards can occasionally be seen working the floor, the ultimate front-of-house personality and the face of the restaurant. Now, Pop's has been voted the best burger joint in North Texas in KERA’s reader’s choice awards.

We think the possibility of discovering another great burger is worth a road trip to Waxahachie, so after reading the KERA story we piled into the car and drove to downtown Waxahachie to see for ourselves.
We arrived at an small red-and-white corner building with a small Sinclair-like dinosaur in front, umbrella’d outdoor seating and an adjoining free parking lot. It wasn’t even 11:30 in the middle of the week, but already a line had formed. While we queued up, we surveyed the interior.

The nostalgic Americana did not end with the gas station dino: inside, the dining area was covered from floor to ceiling with all sorts of automobile memorabilia, traffic and highway signs, a complete VW Beetle hood painted in a '60s paisley motif, guitars, neon beer signs and dozens of framed photos of classic cars, all illuminated by several strings of lights hanging from the ceiling. It reminded us a bit of the basement wood-paneled rec rooms of our childhood, the precursors to today’s man caves.
We ordered a couple of cheeseburgers along with some fries and onion rings. The quarter-pound Angus, never-frozen patties clock in at $5.99; throw a slice of cheese on there for another buck and add a drink and side for $4 more and you’re doing pretty well for under $12, so that’s what we did. We added a fried apple pie, because why not?

You’re going to have to wait a bit for a burger like this. The menu says, “Thank you for your patience. Our menu is cooked to order. Always fresh. Never frozen. No heat lamps. No short cuts,” and indeed it did take about 20 minutes for our order to arrive. But the wait time was worth it.
The burgers are not large, but there are other, larger specialty burgers such as the El Camino and Low & Slow that have bigger patties with more specialized toppings and cost around $10. There's a six-patty monster for $27, but we opted for simplicity. These burgers are pretty spectacular: tasty and juicy, fresh and satisfying, very reminiscent of those great burgers served up from backyard Weber grills. The hand-cut fries and thin onion rings were above average as well. These really are some of the better burgers we’ve had; kudos to the KERA readership.
The fried pie was big enough to share, which we did outside on the patio, enjoying the mid-90-degree weather and slight breeze that came across as almost fall-like after all the 105-plus days we’ve all endured as of late.

It would have been great to wash all this down with a frosty mugged, homemade root beer float but, alas, Pop's had run out of root beer. Evidently, it’s really POPular and was our one disappointment, along with not ordering a couple more burgers for the road.
So, if you don’t mind the drive or are in the area anyway, definitely go visit Pop’s Burger Stand, and for an added treat go on a Thursday Cruise In night. That's when classic cars are said to congregate for a feast of tail fins and chrome as well as great burgers. Enjoy.


107 N. Monroe St., Waxahachie. Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m – 3 p.m.