From bonkers burgers to celebrity fans, the trailblazer behind Nottingham's popular Annie's Burger Shack had no inkling where life would take her when she first moved to the city with just a guitar and a suitcase 25 years ago.
Now the American-style diner, one of Nottingham's biggest food and drink success stories, is gearing up to serve its one millionth burger.
Could it be the famous Johnny Vegas burger named after the comedian and recently devoured by 26 of the world's strongest men who were in the city for a competition at the Motorpoint Arena? Or maybe the Reuben, inspired by the New York sandwich.
"I think it's amazing that we've served one million people here - and that's only burgers, not breakfasts, hot dogs or the kids' menu," says founder and all-American gal Anmarie Spaziano.
"It's crazy thinking we have done that in Nottingham... a million people have come here from around the world."
Proposals - the weirdest was with an onion ring - first dates, break-ups, big celebrations and emotional families returning to remember the good times spent there with a lost loved one - have been witnessed at the award-winning restaurant.
Lemmy from Motorhead, Olympians, Nottingham-born actress Vicky McClure, members of Thin Lizzy and Sophie Ellis Bextor are some of the famous faces who have devoured one of the humongous burgers.
And looking to the future, Annie is on the brink of announcing some very exciting news but we're sworn to secrecy for now.
However, the road to becoming Nottingham's burger queen with a £3.1m turnover at the Lace Market restaurant in Broadway, has been a bumpy one.
The young punk-loving wannabe musician first came to the UK to work as a groom in Ashbourne - a work placement during a veterinary degree back home in the States - and had been desperate to move to Manchester after falling in love with the city.
But a daytrip to Nottingham in 1994 changed that, taking in the sights... Selectadisc, Rock City, the Salutation and the Narrow Boat pub.
"Everyone was so friendly. I was thinking I quite like Nottingham for the music, and I just saw this amazing record store, maybe I could make my life here instead," she recalls.
"It was very cool, I still love Nottingham for that feeling and vibe it gives off, it's very different to lot of cities in the UK."
Days later she bid the Peak District farewell and moved into a flat in the city, armed with just her guitar and all her worldly belongings in a huge suitcase.
"I literally had no idea what to do. I was so naive and free, I didn't know what was going to happen next," she says.
It wasn't exactly the American Dream working at Harry Ramsden's fish and chip restaurant, off Queen's Road, but she enjoyed the job.
What many of her burger-loving customers might not know is that she studied sociology at the University of Nottingham, coming out with a first class degree.
"It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Sociology made me learn a lot about politics here - it also made me learn about being altruistic."
That brings her to the restaurant, and right from the off when veganism was an alien concept she made every item on the menu suitable for vegan, vegetarian and meat-eaters.
"As a kid I always hated being excluded - I always had a lot of guys as mates and never understood when they were like 'we're doing guy's things now'.
"Sociology is all about inclusion - the whole point is everybody should be able to eat equally on the table without feeling different or excluded. You should be able to open the menu and pick anything you want rather than the microwave nut roast at the end of the menu.
"The idea was to make it all taste equally awesome despite the lack of vegan ingredients back them. When I started people asked me what vegan even meant and how visceral people were and cruel. People used to yell at me 'eurgh that's disgusting.'"
We digress... before she started flipping burgers, there was a stint in the housing department at Nottingham City Council until she was made redundant by the local authority.
Rather than go on the dole, she threw herself into making cookies with flavours from around the world - inspired by her mum's festive baking back home - selling them at farmers' markets.
Cooking Guatemalan guava paste cookies and Australian Anzacs until 2am and setting up her stall at 4am at markets here, there and everywhere, was brutally exhausting.
"I had a box of cookies and went to the Old Angel. I hadn't slept and and shoved it on the bar, saying 'that's it, I'm done. Just give them to the staff, I can't do this any more.'
"I was living on cookie dough. I had nothing. There was only one way to go at that point and that was up but I didn't know what to do. I had no idea what to do with my life, I had no direction," she says.
The landlord offered to let her take over the kitchen at the Old Angel, in Stoney Street - and the rest is history but not without ups and downs.
"I was so excited that I'd got my own kitchen. I woke up at 3am and thought this place needs a good burger. No offence England, there were no good burgers at that time.
"I started writing a list of 65 burgers. I thought of doing burgers from around the world and wanted to make them a little rock 'n' roll, so I did Slayer and Sid Vicious burgers."
But two days later when she arrived full of eagerness and ambition, staff told her the kitchen had been given to someone else.
"You know when you have nothing, why would you do that? I was gutted," she admits.
The girls behind the bar refused to work their shift unless the landlord reversed his decision.
"I was walking away like Charlie Brown when I got the text message: 'You better do this right.' Talk about massive ups and downs."
She was given free rein of the kitchen but the pub staff weren't allowed to help or take orders.
"You couldn't order at the bar. You had to knock on the kitchen door. I had my bumbag and frying pan. I took the order and the cash and then make the burgers.
"If someone ordered a burger with an egg and I didn't have any eggs you'd see me running up to Tesco to buy eggs," she says.
"People started to hear about it. To me it was a dream come true. It wasn't about money, you don't go into this business if you think you're going to make money but if somebody is passionate and love what they do and they follow through, it's great," says the woman who "worked her buns off" to make it a success.
It wasn't Annie who burnt the kitchen down but another member of staff when she took a rare day off.
"I remember running in petrified. It was back to square one," she remembers.
"Other places wanted a 20 per cent cut or to charge rent but I had nothing."
Nothing that is but a menu that burger lovers demanded, so Annie's Burger Shack opened at the Navigation pub, in Wilford Street, with the premise that she would "work her ass off to get people on seats."
As a result the Navigation was named one of the top 100 quirkiest pubs in the UK by The Guardian. The burgers were flying out, with queues outside the door and a three-hour wait.
But that turned sour when the landlords didn't want Annie but they wanted her menu. "They wanted to do exactly the same thing. They tried to take my chefs but they were all my closest friends so they said no."
It was thanks to butcher Daniel Griffths becoming her business partner that Annie was able to open her own restaurant at Broadway in 2013.
"He was one of those people who supported small businesses. I wouldn't have been able to do this on my own. He is a good partner to have. We work incredibly well together" she says.
Serving around 1,400 burgers on a Saturday, the restaurant is always fully booked. Even Star Trek's Pavel Chekov (actor Walter Koenig) couldn't get a seat when he turned up out of the blue after an appearance at EM-Con.
"Because the staff were so young they didn't recognise him, and said 'we're sorry but we're full' and turned him away. I didn't know until after and I was 'oh my god,'" says Annie, who got married earlier this year in Tuscany to IT worker Gareth 'Winty' Winterman.
These days Annie tends to steer clear of the kitchen as her team of chefs kick her out when she tries to help.
"I wouldn't hire myself - I get in the way," she says. Instead her energy is spent on growing the business, opening restaurants in Derby and Worcester, but she still invents the specials.
Burgers have been named after some of the her celebrity guests - Lemmy and Johnny Vegas - but there's a rock star who won't be getting his own creation.
"One of the guys from Guns N' Roses came up to me and said 'do you think you could make me a burger for Axl because he would love a burger named after him?' I was like 'I'll think about it.' No sorry, I only like making burgers of things that make sense to me and I like.
"I'm not a big fan of Guns N' Roses," she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially.
On the other hand it was a no brainer with her old mate Johnny Vegas, whose burger is topped with black pudding from an award-winning Lancs company and a home-made mini Guinness jelly doughnut on a stick.
"He is such a character and he is great to make a burger for - he's proud that he's from Lancashire and he's known for drinking Guinness. I wanted to create an edible teacup because of his PG Tips advert but operationally my chefs would have punched me," she laughs.
