HALTOM CITY
Clown Burger, a 1950s-style throwback considered one of America’s oldest hamburger restaurants with a clown theme, appears to have closed after the arrest of a business partner in connection with a sexual assault investigation.
Willis Odell’s arrest Sept. 1 left the restaurant’s future unclear. But original owner Kari Snodgrass, a daughter of the late founder Bill Louthan, sent an online message Sunday saying the stand is “permanently closed.”
Snodgrass has posted restaurant fixtures for sale on Facebook and Facebook Marketplace, including booths, tables, non-working booth jukeboxes and a scoreboard used in the decor. The giant Clown sign will go up for sale soon, she posted.
However, a former partner in the business, Renee Medford of Dixie House Cafe, wrote in a message that she hopes to reopen the Clown.
The beloved small neighborhood burger grill is known for old-time, thin-patty double or triple cheeseburgers that had not changed since it opened in 1959.
The Clown followed Dee’s Drive-Ins in Utah (1931) and Jack-in-the-Box (1951) and the Big Clown (1955) in California among early “clown” restaurants. McDonald’s Restaurants did not add a clown theme until 1963.
Medford and Odell took over running the Clown when Snodgrass retired in 2022. Medford and Odell operated the restaurant together until September 2025, when, she said, Odell forced her out.
The restaurant had been open intermittently since Sept. 1 but had not updated its social media pages, which are now filled with comments about Odell’s arrest.
The original 1959 restaurant was a drive-in with a canopy at 5512 E. Belknap St., back when that street was still the main highway north to Denton and Oklahoma via U.S. 377 or east to Dallas via Texas 183.
The current location at 5020 Stanley Keller Road, 1 mile south of Loop 820, opened in 1994. The original Clown closed in 1995.
The founder, the late Bill Louthan, always vowed nothing would change from the day the Clown opened., particularly not the ⅙-pound burgers grilled with American cheese on toasted buns.
A Clown Burger jalapeno double cheeseburger with fries. Bud Kennedy bud@star-telegram.com
When the Clown opened, fast-food hamburger stands had not come to Fort Worth. The 15-cent burgers were cooked to order along with foot-long chili dogs and thin, hand-cut french fries.
Louthan retired in 2016 after 53 years working the grill. He died in 2024.
In a message, Medford wrote that she took over a share of Clown Burger because she wanted to “carry on the Clown Burger name and honor the legacy that Bill had created.”
She wrote that she left the restaurant due to a “complicated” partnership and “threats and circumstances that became too difficult.” She was not specific.
“No matter where the story goes from here, I will always be honored to say that, for a little while, we were part of the Clown Burger family,” she wrote.
Your burger at Clown Burger will taste “exactly like” the burgers in 1959, the sign promised. Bud Kennedy bud@star-telegram.com
Odell was arrested after the Haltom City Police Department received a call Aug. 24 from Medical City North Hills hospital about a patient who reported a sexual assault.
According to the police affidavit, the victim said she was working side jobs for Odell, a family friend, in early August when Odell drove her to his home, pressured her to use methamphetamine and assaulted her.
After she pushed him away, according to the affidavit, he gave her $40 and instructed her not to tell anybody.
She contacted a crisis hotline Aug. 22 before family members took her to the emergency room, police said.
Odell was released on $25,000 bond.
This story was originally published September 21, 2026 at 4:26 AM.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Bud Kennedy is celebrating his 40th year writing about restaurants in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He has written the “Eats Beat” dining column in print since 1985 and online since 1992 — that’s more than 3,000 columns about Texas cafes, barbecue, burgers and where to eat.
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