I would frequent a hot dog joint that was set up like a Subway. Wieners hot off the grill, placed in a plain or toasted bun, then run through the accompaniments and condiments line. Ingredients would include all those to make every type of well-known regional dog: Slaw dog, Michigan Red Hots, Coneys, Dodger Dog, Chicago Dog, Sonoran Dog, etc. They could also include corn dogs and plant-based wieners for the vegans.
The minimarts (7-11) near me that used to have self-serve hotdogs two for a dollar have all stopped selling them. The condiment area was always a mess with a swarm tiny flying gnats.
Indeed, my joint wouldn’t be self-serve. The hot dogs would be prepared by dog-tenders, with the ingredients kept fresh and tidy.
Nathan’s Famous is a nationwide hot dog chain, as mentioned above. I wouldn’t really classify Sonic as a hot dog chain, though.
But I wouldn’t classify Nathan’s Famous as “nationwide.”
And the bread. A good bun makes it special.
There was (maybe still is) a place on the Seattle waterfront called Mr. Frankfurter. They had a variety of hot dogs and sausages ranging from pretty plain “kosher” to jalapeno cheddar dogs. I think they had about 6 choices, and fresh lemonade. Really quite good.
According to their website, they are in 24 states, and in 14 countries. Well, 15 if you count the US.
A step in which direction?
Decades ago I toured a chicken processing plant in Lancaster County, PA. I went a few years without eating chicken after the experience. The chicken hot dog material was at “the end of the line”. By that point the bits and pieces were ground to a “gloop” that plopped down a tube to the floor below where it filled plastic drums.
I wish they were more common too. Thankfully there’s a Dog Haus (biergarten) near my house.
It’s basically a fancy pants hot dog joint that has several different beers on tap.
I would kill for a Coney Islander in my neck of the woods though.
Some people complain about ketchup on a hot dog, but the real crime is boiling one. That’s the best way to turn a hot dog into a flaccid, tasteless extrusion.
Growing up in Detroit (suburbs), Coney Island hot dogs were a staple:
I have no idea how they compare to any other regional dogs, but … they were freaking delicious.
In high school, my best friend’s father was an insomniac (and probably bipolar). He’d wake us up at 3am, throw us in the car, and drive 45 minutes to downtown Detroit for hot dogs.
[burp]
We have a Dairy Queen and an A&W in the small town that we stay at, but if I was really hankering for a good hotdog, I’d head to the gas station/convenience store and get a roller dog. They advertised them as being Nathan’s beef hotdogs, and they were mighty tasty. Cheap too.
That hot dogs are so cheap may be one reason there aren’t any national chains. It’s hard to build a business out of such an inexpensive product. Dunkin Donuts did it by selling donuts by the dozen and by having good coffee.
As someone who grew up 15 or 20 minutes from Coney Island, I always thought it was funny when I move out to Cincinnati and saw Coney Island hot dogs. I was all, WTF is that? In Brooklyn, you’re much more likely to have mustard and sauerkraut or those weird tomato onions on a hotdog that chili or onions.
Near The University of Pittsburgh we had The Original Hot Dog Shop , The O or The Dirty O which shut down in 2020. They were always busy, but COVID did them in (?).
A good friend of mine was there eating one night when his gf threw away the garbage from their tray. His key-ring was on the tray. He got an employee to let him root through the garbage bag, then the garbage bag on top of the others in the dumpster, but no keys.
Then his gf remembered she’d put them in her coat pocket. The Dirty-O indeed!
That’s not true at all. The dogs vary quite a lot in flavor. I don’t put much on them, so i care a lot about the brand.
A&W is pretty much a Minnesota thing now, but I remember many more 30 years ago. Were they national?
They can be few and far between but yes, they are national. The one closest to me in Kent, Ohio is a drive-in.
Cleveland has a local fancy hot dog place, Happy Dog. They have a lot of toppings. They had a stall at our baseball stadium for a few years and they sold a “Slider Dog” (Slider is the team mascot) and it had pimento mac & cheese, pulled pork and Froot Loops. I swear to god it was tasty!
I think the place is better known as a bar and music joint than a “hey let’s go out for hotdogs tonight” deal. But it still is at its heart a hot dog restaurant.
Warren Ohio has a Hot Dog Shoppe (now with 3 locations!) and their dogs are A DOLLAR THIRTY SIX. They serve fries and shakes and hamburgers and even breakfast now. But I indeed have traveled out there just for a “let’s go out for hotdogs tonight!” dinner.
A&W was owned by Yum! Brands for about a decade in the early 2000s, which led to the building/rebranding of a lot of A&W locations as co-branded restaurants with another Yum! brand – you’d see an A&W/Long John Silvers, or A&W/Taco Bell, etc.
It got spun off to an investor group of A&W franchisees in 2011; this 2019 article says that they still had about 600 restaurants in the U.S. at that time.