I love hot dogs, as most Americans do, whether at backyard BBQs or baseball stadiums, but why no nationwide chains. I know there’s Der Wienerschnitzel in Cali, and Nations on East Coast, but other than them, what?
Sonic is probably the closest
Yeah. I just checked Wiki and they say Sonic is present in 46 states. And apparently, Der Wienerschnitzel have dropped the Der from their name.
Nathan’s Famous is in 24 states and some other countries.
I wouldn’t count places that serve everything as “hot dog places.” The dog needs to be the heart of the menu. Heck, from the looks of their menu even Nathan’s doesn’t qualify!
When I was a kid the only place I ever got hot dogs was the Orange Julius in the mall. They sold the Orange Julius drinks and hot dogs and that was it. I got one every time my family went to the mall, unless we went to Friendlys. Later, my local “new mall” replaced that one with a Orange Julius/Dairy Queen but dropped all food products. So, that’s only place I really remember being “just a hot dog place” but curiously when I search info on Orange Julius there is no reference to the hot dogs at all. I don’t recall any other co-branding, Orange Julius was a hot dog stand with the Julius drinks.
Now Dairy Queen has approx 4500 US stores and they sell hot dogs. Though obviously not a “hot dog stand” I guess I associate hot dog as their primary food offering, due to history with OJ as well as the fact they operate stores at my local pools offering a limited dessert menu and hot dogs, basically a pool hot dog stand.
Sonic was mentioned. For whatever reason we had one in my town that didn’t last too long. As mentioned they had a variety of food and I recall a lot of different drink choices and specials as far as fast food goes, plus tater tots and the best ice. I didn’t eat there much but I guess it seemed like the hot dogs were the leading entree.
A&W (though not national) is another one I associate with hot dogs because for a time they had mall kiosks that were just hot dogs and drinks/floats. Wikipedia actually does back me up on this memory. They were branded A&W Hot Dogs and More.
Wikipedia says Nathan’s has (had?) stores in 50 states but I’ve never seen one. I’ve bought their hot dogs and frozen onion rings at the grocery store but that’s it.
I usually only see them in airports while traveling.
Hot dogs are probably one of the easiest things there is to cook. They’re all premade, industrially uniform, and can be cooked several different, but largely easy, ways. The only real difficulty is just not leaving them on a grill long enough to burn, and you can entirely avoid that problem by just boiling them. Hell, lots of gas stations have automatic hot dog cooking machines that can keep them in a mostly edible state for hours.
So really, all that distinguishes one hotdog from another is the condiments, and it’s hard to build an entire brand around that.
And even if you did, it would really be a “condiment restaurant”, not a “hot dog restaurant”.
Also, as this article notes, which toppings are preferred on a dog vary quite a bit from region to region, which may be another factor against a national hot dog chain.
That they did… in 1977.
It’s actually kinda surprising how many people call it by the old name and/or think it’s a recent change when it happened five years before I was even born.
You young punk! 
But yeah, sometimes it’s amusing how long it takes a name change to really take in general usage.
At the University of Guelph, where I did my undergraduate degree, there was a student pub that was officially called “Brass Taps”, but which everyone on campus called “The Keg”. This used to be its actual name, but they had to change it after being sued by the restaurant chain “The Keg”. That change happened years before I was a student there, but no one - I mean, NO ONE - ever used the official name. It was always The Keg.
Now my nephew goes there, and it seems it’s finally become The Brass Taps, but it took decades for that change to finally occur.
Bloody Millennials, screwing up a perfectly good student pub legend!
they’ve put the “der” back in their advertising as a catchphrase here’s some with it in it
Hot dogs are usially sold from food carts on the street.
It would be hard to franchise and get anyone to pay fees. Most people woulf buy ot rent a food cart and stock it.
It’s not like Wendys where there’s a recognizibe building and prodict packaging that brings customers inside.
I would think one of the largest (possibly the largest) hotdog chain would be the CostCo Food Courts. They sold 151 million hot dogs in 2020, or about 3 million a week. And they are in most of the US states, Canadian provinces, and several foreign countries.
It’s not the only item on the menu, but it’s a major one – either the 1st or 2nd biggest seller. (The CostCo pizza is the other big item. CostCo sells enough to be the 14th biggest pizza chain in the US, even without delivery drivers and late night hours.)
well weinerschnitzel here gets by because their hotdogs are sold like hamburgers
here’s the posted online menu
And that concept is already taken.
There use to be a drive-thru chain in Southern California called Pup ‘N’ Taco that sold hotdogs and hard tacos. You could buy a sackfull for a couple bucks. I miss that place.
To answer the OP: because hot dogs are one step removed from Purina.
We had Wienerschnitzel in Utah when I went to school out there. According to Wikipedia
My advisor in Utah was the quintessential German professor. It always bothered him that Americans could have a restaurant – even a fast-food restaurant – that was called “Weinderschnitzel”, but at which you could not actually get weinerschnitzel ( which is a pan-fried breaded veal cutlet). To him it must have been like an American going to, say, Tibet and seeing a place called, in English, “Char Broiled Sirloin” , but which only sold vegan quiches.
When I was a kid in New Jersey the closest fast-food joint was Stewart’s hot dogs. They were all over New Jersey, but have sadly mostly disappeared from most of the places I knew. It’s still around in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The website says it started in 1932, but Wikipedia says the first one opened in Ohio in 1924.
There used to be other hot dog, french fry, and root beer places similar to Stewart’s , but they’ve mostly disappeared too
I knew about Nathan’s of Coney Island, but didn’t see any franchises until maybe 25 years ago. Most of the franchises that opened in shopping malls that I have seen are now closed, but they’re still at a lot of highway rest stops in the Northeast.
Wikipedia has a listing of hot dog chains – List of hot dog restaurants - Wikipedia