Chef Robert Krause is marking his return to Topeka with a new restaurant to open in the long-vacant College Hill commercial development, and he’s bringing nine of his favorite local businesses with him.

Krause and his wife, Molly Krause, along with their business partners Simon and Codi Bates, plan to open a second location of their gourmet burger restaurant The Burger Stand in the College Hill Redevelopment Center, just northeast of Washburn University. The original restaurant is located in Lawrence, and is in the process of relocating to that city’s downtown.

Before agreeing to open the new restaurant, Krause recruited nine other established Topeka businesses to make the move to the new development with him, including a coffee shop, a combination wine shop and bar, a furniture show room and a bakery. Developers Doug Compton and Bill Newsome approached Krause about opening a restaurant in the College Hill development about eight months ago, but Krause was determined to secure a block of neighboring businesses before signing on.

“What we want to do is have a group of like-minded businesses that have all proven successful that can fill that area and make it into a destination,” he said. “The one thing I’ve thought about Topeka is that it has always seemed to be so spread out. You’ve got one good place to eat over here, and then you have some other retail that’s interesting in another location. But to have a whole bunch of businesses go in that are all proven successful, to all be in the same area – where else can you do that? I mean, it seems like a risk, but business is a risk, and having all of these businesses going in there together is less of a risk.”

Compton and Newsome offered several incentives to the prospective tenants, including reduced rent and assistance with start-up costs. Krause said the final stages of the deal were nearly complete, and that he anticipated “things might start happening” as early as this fall. While he and his business partners are familiar with the struggle the College Hill developers have experienced to find tenants for commercial space, Krause said he believes the area has a lot of perks.

“The whole timing on this College Hill project could not have been worse,” he said. “They built that thing at the height of the building boom, and then they turned around and tried to sell it at the bottom. It has been, for them and the timing of it, very unfortunate. But the space is new, and it has a great urban character. There’s a residential component to it, so there are customers built right in there. And for a restaurant offering moderately priced, inexpensive, high-quality food, there’s a lot of people nearby between the medical community, downtown, Washburn and a lot of those great old neighborhoods in Topeka.”

The Krauses and their business partners the Bates co-own two trendy Lawrence eateries – Esquina and The Burger Stand at Dempsey’s. The Krauses are also familiar to many Topekans for opening New City Café, 4005 S.W. Gage Center Drive, which the couple operated from 1995 – 1999 before selling the business. That restaurant, the couple noted, also opened in a largely vacant area that few Topekans thought could support it. Fifteen years later, these doubts seem to have been put to rest.

The concept for The Burger Stand is a gourmet burger restaurant located within a bar, focused on high-quality ingredients and complex flavors. The restaurant serves up half-pound burgers made from a tenderloin, ribeye and strip mix, served on brioche buns with a variety of toppings, such as gouda cheese, habanero-cactus jam and Granny Smith apple chutney. There are vegetarian options available, including the popular falafel burger, and sides include truffle and duck fat fries. A bar menu comprised of American craft beers and traditional cocktails will also be available, priced at what Krause said was a very competitive level.

“It’s value-minded,” he said. “We want to have the goods, but we’re not talking about having things that are unaffordable to the mainstream person. If a beverage should cost $5 on the open market, we’d rather see ours’ slightly under that price. We want people to feel like they can come to our place and not have to consider whether they can afford it or not.”

Molly Krause and Simon and Codi Bates are all Topeka natives, and Krause has spent much of his professional career in the capital city, as well. Both couples expressed their excitement about opening a restaurant their friends and family members could enjoy in a city they described as undergoing an apparent revitalization over the past few years.

“There’s never – not in my life – been this sense of optimism, where things are really happening that are cool and attractive, where people would move to Topeka on purpose,” Krause said. “I like it. It’s really important to us to have a contribution that is going to be for the betterment of that area, and for our hometown, and for the people that we know. We want this. I mean, I am not kidding – this is our goal.”