Ask a Texas Tech graduate from almost any decade where they ate in college, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear one word: Spanky’s.
The burger joint at 811 University Ave., right across the street from campus, has been around since 1982. For nearly all of that time, it has belonged to one person. Lisa West bought it in 1987, when she was 21, and she has been running it ever since, the restaurant says.
From a tiny room to most of a block
When West took over, Spanky’s was small. She described it to The Texas Bucket List in 2017 as a 15-by-15-foot room that sat about 15 people. Spanky’s own Facebook video puts the early count at 12 seats. Either way, it was tiny. In those early days, the restaurant says, West took your order, cooked your food and brought it to your table herself.
Today Spanky’s covers nearly a whole block, upstairs included. “It’s one of those whole-in-the-wall’s that kind of grew up, but we still have that whole-in-the-wall feel,” West told the Bucket List crew.
West also changed who worked there. “Prior to my buying it they had never hired a girl,” she said in that 2017 interview. “I mean, it was a boys club here.”
The one that wouldn’t sell
The biggest test came in the early 2000s, when the North Overton neighborhood around Spanky’s was torn down and rebuilt by developers. KCBD reported at the end of 2004 that Delbert McDougal, CEO of the McDougal development company, said he had offered West $1.2 million for the University Avenue restaurant. She told the station it was not for sale, which made Spanky’s the only original business there still standing that McDougal hadn’t bought out.
It wasn’t easy. Business slowed during the demolition, West told KCBD. That December, she closed a second Spanky’s on Slide Road to focus on the University store and her family. She said she was a single mom raising a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. She also planned to expand the balcony so it could seat twice as many people.
Her story from those years is part of history now. Texas Tech’s Southwest Collection recorded a 2004 oral history interview with West for its North Overton Redevelopment project, covering how she bought the restaurant and how the redevelopment affected it.
What makes it Spanky’s
The restaurant takes its name from a character in The Little Rascals, the Bucket List noted. The menu is built around “oldstyle” burgers, chicken sandwiches and appetizers, the restaurant says, plus margaritas and cold beer. Two items do most of the talking:
- The fried cheese. These are big, thick-breaded cheese sticks that West told the Bucket List draw “a line out the door and around the building.” She told the Kansas City Star in 2024 that the recipe is “exactly the same” as when the restaurant opened, and the restaurant says she still makes it herself.
- The He-Man Woman Hater. It’s a double-meat, double-cheese bacon burger served with crinkle fries. Asked about the name, West told the Bucket List: “Well it was already on the menu,” West told the Bucket List. “I loved it. I think it’s fun.”
Spanky’s has a famous fan, too. Patrick Mahomes named it his favorite Lubbock spot when he played at Tech, telling ESPN in 2016 that he went for the “legendary” fried cheese, the Kansas City Star reported. West told the Star that he liked to sit upstairs by the window looking out at the stadium.
A game-day institution
Being across from Jones AT&T Stadium makes Spanky’s a pre-game and post-game stop. West has seen a lot of big weekends, including ESPN’s College GameDay visit in 2008. Last November, before a big home weekend, she told KCBD how much Tech has grown since then. She also noted what those crowds mean to newer restaurants. “It makes or breaks a lot of the newer businesses that haven’t been here as long,” she said.
Now families come back across generations. “We’ve had lots of followers from across different generations come, even grandchildren now,” West told the Kansas City Star.
If you go
- Where: 811 University Ave., across from Texas Tech
- Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday (per the restaurant)
- Phone: 806-744-5677
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Sources
- Spanky's About page: https://www.spankys.com/about
- Spanky's location and hours: https://www.spankys.com/our-location
- Spanky's menu: He-Man Woman Hater: https://www.spankys.com/items/he-man-woman-hater
- Spanky's on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpankysLBK/videos/from-12-seats-to-a-lubbock-landmark-%EF%B8%8Flisa-west-bought-spankys-in-1987-when-she-w/1833253457266941/
- The Texas Bucket List, Apr. 2, 2017: https://thetexasbucketlist.com/2017/04/the-texas-bucket-list-spankys-in-lubbock/
- KCBD, Dec. 31, 2004: https://www.kcbd.com/story/2752164/spankys-closes-restaurant/
- Southwest Collection Oral History, Lisa Butler West, 2004: https://oralhistory.swco.ttu.edu/index.php?title=West%2C_Lisa_Butler_2004-08-04
- Kansas City Star, Feb. 7, 2024: https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article285163942.html
- KCBD, Nov. 5, 2025: https://www.kcbd.com/2025/11/05/lubbock-businesses-expecting-major-economic-boost-weekend-football-crowds/
