Yes, the Plazaburger, born in 1964, sopped with secret sauce and copied coast to coast. If you're from here, your parents, grandparents and even kids have eaten them.

Yet change is coming even to The Plaza Tavern and Grill, just off State Street. The business, which dates to the 1920s, is changing hands for the first time in 40 years.

Since 1963, The Plaza, 315-319 N. Henry St., has been run by the Huss family. Mary and Harold Huss are gone now, but their four children, Kathy, Peg, Jim and Tom, have carried on.

The quartet is as familiar to Plaza fans as the famous Plaza sauce. Their last day will be March 1.

But one familiar face will remain. Dean Hetue, a Plaza employee of 22 years, is in the process of buying the business.

"He's like a member of the family," says Kathy, and all agree they would not have sold to anyone else at this time.

But The Plaza will change.

It's inevitable, perhaps, that even Madison's most cherished memories must give way to modernity. Yes, Hetue wants to put in a big-screen TV.

That's it.

Everything else will be the same.

"I've loved this place," says Hetue. "I'm going to carry on the same traditions: good food, good prices, good fun - that's The Plaza."

It's a weekday lunch spot for Downtown residents and businesspeople. It's a hangout at all hours for artists, actors and musicians. At night, it's a hotspot for campus Greeks, and on Saturdays families with children invade.

It was in 1964 that Mary Huss perfected Plaza sauce - primarily good for burgers, also good for fries. It's what makes the house hamburger a Plazaburger, never mind the copycat "Madison Plazaburgers" that are sold at restaurants in San Diego, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul and La Crosse.

None have been able to successfully recreate the runny, aromatic condiment.

Its unique flavor helps sell 900 to 1,000 Plazaburgers a week, at $3.10 each, and it has helped the Plaza secure its place as one of Madison's oldest continuous restaurants.

Just how old is uncertain. Its birthdate is shrouded in the foam of illegal beer; the tavern started during prohibition, as a back-room speakeasy, and it was raided by federal agents at least once. Prohibition ended in 1933, and in 1939 it began to take on its current shape under owner Al Grebe.

Harold Huss started there in 1945. To buy it in 1963, the family got the financial help of Frank "Moon" Molinaro, a 1933 UW-Madison football star who in his off-time was the bootleg bartender who started it all.

"He always used to say he made more money here back then than the governor," recalls Tom. Little has probably changed - even the Huss family cannot recall a time before the interior was appreciably different.

That's one of the attractions. "It's so nice to have people come back and say, 'It looks like it did 20 years ago!'

The decor is Rhinelander roadhouse, circa 1947, with green vinyl booths, chromium hat-racks on seat backs, dark paneling and a wooden phone booth.

Over it all brood seven massive water scenes, painted between 1949 and 1952 by an artist named Pyne. They depict views of the Wisconsin River's Dells, the Fox and Kickapoo Rivers and Lakes Mendota and Monona.

Plaza patrons have included Bill Murray, Johnny Cash, Tom Wopat, Brett Favre, Neil Young, Greta Van Susteren, Joan and John Cusack, and former Govs. Patrick Lucey, Lee Sherman Dreyfus, Tony Earl and Tommy Thompson.

The Plaza once shipped its famous sauce in dry ice to homesick Wisconsinites in San Francisco. A UW-Madison alumnus in Boston paid round-trip airfare for it to be personally delivered.

After the ownership change, Jim Huss will retire. Sisters Peg and Kathy are looking for work. Brother Tom will go to work for Modern Specialty Co., a vending machine firm once co-owned by Molinaro.

"But this place will always be in our blood," says Kathy. "It's our home."

And all agree with Peg, who says, "We have enjoyed the customers. They made it just plain fun."

For his part, Hetue says, "I really appreciate that the family has had faith in me all these years, and that they're allowing me to continue their tradition."

While the transfer of the business is almost complete, one important detail awaits. After more than two decades behind the bar, Hetue still doesn't know the recipe for Plaza sauce.

"I'm really excited about that," he admits. But the secret will only be passed on "after we sign the papers," says Tom.

And Kathy adds, laughing, "When the money is in the bank."