One night in 2008, Anna Notario and her housemate binge-watched “Arrested Development.” Inspired by the show’s famous frozen bananas, they conceived the idea of opening a frozen banana stand in Austin. 

On hearing about this idea the next day, junior Laura Anderson and her housemates jokingly talked about starting this business.

“We talked about doing this, but it was one of those things that you talk about but you know isn’t really going to happen,” Anderson said.

During her junior summer studying abroad in Mexico, Anderson said she would lie awake thinking about opening the stand. Little did she know that by the time of her graduation, she and Notario, a business and corporate communication alumna, would succeed in opening Austin’s first frozen banana stand: Bananarchy. 

The truck got its start, Anderson said, when she first attempted to open the stand as her Plan II thesis. Though Plan II initially rejected the proposal, Anderson soon modified her thesis to a creative writing project centered around her experience of starting the business.

“I felt committed because, before that, I thought, ‘I have all these important things I’m supposed to be doing for my thesis’ so I didn;’t give myself permission to do this thing I wanted to do,” Anderson said. “But because I made it a priority by making my thesis around it … it was a way of giving myself permission to do (Bananarchy).”

Plan II lecturer Matt Valentine said he supported Anderson as her thesis supervisor. As he oversaw her written thesis and the building of her business, Valentine said he gained a more vested interest in its fruition.

“I didn’t have any stake in whether or not the business succeeded, because I knew she would be able to tell a good story about it, whether it succeeded or failed,” Valentine said. “She believed in it, and I found myself hoping she would succeed.”

Valentine said he even volunteered his time toward building the physical food truck for the business.

“After she bought a truck, she had a group of people who were working on remodeling this food truck, and most of them didn’t have a lot of construction experience or tools,” Valentine said. “So I showed up with some tools and helped out with demolishing old plywood and retrofitting this food truck to serve a new purpose.”

When the food truck opened, Anderson said their constrained budget posed the biggest obstacle.

“The trailer was on a slant at our first location so the door would come open,” Anderson said. “Rather than buying a latch for the door to keep it closed, we would just shove a sponge in between the door and the frame because it would stay closed. That way, we don’t have to spend money on a latch.”

Despite early hurdles, Anderson said the business continued to grow, now encompassing two locations in Austin, offering a variety of different flavors and serving customers all over the city.

“There are not many other food trucks that do this, and I think it’s a cool idea for dessert,” said finance sophomore Shubam Khetarpal, a frequent customer at Bananarchy.

While Valentine said he believes Anderson’s circumstances would be difficult to replicate, it remains a testament to other students that persistence pays off.

“If you’re passionate about something, and you really want to do it, even if people tell you that you can’t do it, you can find a way to,” Valentine said.