Huh. Not my experience. I’ve been to outdoor meals that served neither burgers nor dogs, but I can’t recall ever being at a cookout with burgers that didn’t have some sort of grilled sausage (usually including plain hot dogs) as an option.
I can think of at least six places within a 10 minute drive of me (5 minutes is too short of a distance to really get a good sample) to get hot dogs, but there are at least four dozen places that serve hamburgers in the same circle, and I’m probably underestimating that number.
I will say, though, that if I go to a generic sort of restaurant, like a hotel bar, or a diner, I expect there to be a burger on the menu. Hot dogs are less common. Not rare, but not ubiquitous like hamburgers.
Plus, you can put ketchup on a hamburger.
I’m as big a carnivore as they come, and even I have to think about baseball to avoid thinking about how they’re made and getting a little sick. I can only eat the all-beef ones too.
The issue is that fast food places were all hamburger places. McDonald’s did not sell hot dogs, nor did any other chain. There were hot dog stands, but they were not marketed or franchised until after McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and many other burger places caught on.
People got used to getting a burger for fast food. Hot dogs remained a niche restaurant with no national chains.
Not at Louis’ Lunch, which claims to be the restaurant that invented the American hamburger (although there are other who also make that claim).
My hot dog story:
When I was in business school, at the University of Wisconsin, taking a market research class, we had a guest lecturer: the director of market research at Oscar Mayer (which, at that time, was based in Madison).
He took us through all sorts of research techniques that they used, and we got to see the original concepts for Lunchables, which had just been introduced. At the end of his lecture, he asked if there were any questions. My friend asked, “So, what do you really put in the hot dogs?”
His answer was, I swear: “Oh, good stuff…stuff you’d eat…meat.”
:eek:
That’s interesting since beef is such a big thing in Brazil (according to a quick search they are the world’s leading exporter of beef). I wonder if it’s frowned upon to turn their delicious meats into ground beef?
I would posit a couple of reasons. The perception that hot dogs are lower quality, highly processed meat is mostly true, even though of course crappy burgers exist. Many common brands of hot dogs make me feel vaguely ill, and there are only a few premium brands that I trust. The contents of a lot of hot dogs are in the category of “you don’t want to know”!
But I think a much bigger reason – and some have already alluded to it – is that the basic size and shape of a burger – especially one of the larger ones – allows a wide variety of toppings, sometimes quite elaborate ones. You rarely hear about “gourmet hot dogs”, but lots of places claim gourmet burgers, and some actually live up to the name. Plus of course the patty itself can be made out of pure high quality ground beef and not much else.
So in my lexicon, hot dog = casual snack, while burger = potentially the main part of a filling, delicious meal.
Ill take bacon and queso on my hot dog, please. Both are great. Hotdogs are perhaps easier to prepare as you can throw em in the microwave. Hamburgers are more easily customized with other ingredients.
Not 100% true. When I was a little kid (this would have been the late 1960s or very early 1970s), I didn’t like hamburgers, but I did like hot dogs (plain, of course, because I was a fussy child). There was a Burger King near our house (in Downers Grove, IL), where we would occasionally go for a meal, and I’d get a hot dog.
Then, one day, we went to Burger King, my parents ordered a hot dog for me, and the manager had to inform us that they didn’t have hot dogs anymore. Apparently, my parents convinced me that a hamburger wouldn’t kill me, and I must have liked it, since I became a fan of hamburgers soon after.
Now, I don’t know if Burger Kings generally offered hot dogs back then, or not, but a Google Image search did find me a few pictures of old BK menus that feature hot dogs:
Ketchup is the work of the devil. I know this isnt a popular opinion but it cant stand up to salsas and I dislike the added sugar (same with peanut butter).
[Der] Weinerschnitzel isnt a national chain?
Hamburgers are probably MUCH easier to produce on a mass scale than hot dogs - the only ingredient is beef. Slaughter, grind, mold and ship out to franchisees everywhere. Hot dogs require flavorings and processing that make it much more expensive/complicated to do on a mass scale. I’m not saying it’s impossible, that’s obviously not true - I’m saying that hamburgers are the path of least resistance in that arena.
Yeah, the regulations in Chicago have been pretty strict and financially onerous for hot dog push carts. There were laws passed in 2017 to make it a bit easier, from what I’ve read, but the few push carts I remember from my childhood in the 80s and 90s were from, as far as I know, illegal vendors. This cite says they were illegal until 2015, but does not give a starting date. Chicago Parks seems to have a different set of requirements. I personally would not be surprised, though, if local law enforcement turns a blind eye to non-compliant vendors.
That said, I just don’t see them around. I vaguely remember one outside a bar on 55th and one of the K-streets here back in the 2000s, but that was a non-mobile stand and it didn’t last for too long.
I agree. A restaurant can buy ground beef and make its hamburgers in house. But they would have to buy hot dogs pre-made from a supplier. So there’s more profit in selling hamburgers.
No:
Neither is Sonic really, nor Nathans, nor Papaya Dog, nor even Checkers…, which are most of the few ‘chains’ that sell hot dogs in my area.
That list omits places like DQ, which also serves hamburgers and chili dogs at some 4500 locations nationwide.