Gruppe Chat

Dazed and confused? What is Gruppe Chat?

This location may look familiar to some of you. This car meet takes place at Top Notch Hamburgers. Top Notch embraces car culture. They often have events such as Hot Rod Drive-in movie nights or Volkswagen Nights, all while still operating a business and making delicious fast food. On this particular day, Top Notch hosts a monthly Thursday car meet called Gruppe Chat. The theme of this meet is Vintage European cars, essentially in my eyes anything pre-2000's that's European-made. But this group welcomes all, they just want to reserve the lot parking for those vintage euros

Air out the room.

I love coming to these because one, the hamburgers are just delicious. Two, Euro's just have a sweet spot in my heart that I can't deny. I have an infinite love for air-cooled Porsches. I may need to go into this story deeper at a later date, but the short story is one of my neighbors growing up had 993 whale tail and the modern (at the time in the 90's) the 964. As a kid, I liked cars without even knowing, but my neighbor could see the small ember inside me that would bloom into this fiery passion and taught this 10-year-old kid about Porsches knowing everything would go over his little head. And this is one of the main reasons I enjoy going to Gruppe Chat, to see this classic air-cooled Porsches that I once dreamed of owning.

More than just cars.

Yes, I do admit that some cool cars show up. You get some period-correct restored Porsches, to wild resto-mod BMWs with modern transplants. Occasionally, I'll see some cars I don't even know what it is. For example, this night was specifically Alfa Romero Gruppe Chat Night. I can't tell the difference between the different model Julias or know what engines they originally came with. But it does remind me of the days when I would catch the BTCC (British Touring Car Championships) on the SPEED channel. I easily recognized Alfa's because as a child my reaction was "hehe, circle headlights". I'm a big bug-eye and flip-up headlights kind of kid.

What is really neat about this meet is the community around this group. The fact that everyone is excited to come every month, bringing families, and introducing young teenagers to cars they've never seen. At every one of these meets, Gruppe Chat does a raffle of several gifts ranging from car detail products or a cool doormat of printed vintage Euro. All you have to do is provide your dinner receipt from Top Notch from that night and you get a chance to win. That means I get to pig out, check out the cool vibes, and get a chance to win something. Maybe this is why I keep coming back, although I'm still very serious about how good their burgers are alone.