Dog Days

The hot dog was America’s original street food and its migration to Chicago and the North Shore is the story of immigrants and how they planted roots in America.

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

America’s history is a history of immigrants. Coming from all corners of the globe, immigrants have influenced every aspect of American life, from arts and culture to business enterprise to how our communities were and continue to be shaped. But perhaps no other area of American life has been more impacted by immigrants than the food we eat.

The history of that impact cannot be told without street food—the cheap eats originally sold from carts that were a favorite of the working class, both for its ethnic tastes and affordability.

And the original street food in America was the hot dog.

The hot dog in America first blew up in New York City, where hot dog stands dotted the Manhattan landscape. It was popularized in Chicago at the 1893 World’s Fair, and during the depression, the classic Chicago hot dog was born.

Vienna Beef wiener on an S. Rosen’s bun (the one with poppyseeds) “dragged through the garden,” topped (in order) with mustard, relish, chopped onion, tomatoes, pickle, peppers, and celery salt. The idea, essentially, was to put an entire meal on a bun. (If you threw on some cheese, you’d be covering all five major food groups).

The Vienna Beef wiener is the key to this Picasso.

“I use all Vienna Beef natural case hot dogs. I use the best of the best. People like that snap of the hot dog, that texture of the hot dog,” says Jerry Rayyan, owner of Dear Franks in Deerfield, which is a member of the Vienna Beef Hall of Fame. “When you bite into a hot dog there’s no other flavor like it.”

Bill Savage is, you could say, a hot dog aficionado. He’s partial to Romanian Kosher hot dogs, the sausage shop in Skokie, and keeps a pack in his freezer. Savage lives in Rogers Park and is a Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University. He teaches a course on Chicago history that includes how culinary tastes in Chicago were developed.

“The hot dog is immigrant food. It came over with German Jewish immigrants from Central Europe,” Savage says. “The cultural importance of the hot dog is simply the fact that it's one of the pieces of evidence for the way that immigrant culture works in the United States.”

These days in addition to hot dogs it's tacos and Chinese restaurants, Savage says. Immigrant groups come over and they initially sell their food to each other, but more often than not end up selling it to everybody.

“The hot dog is also, like all the other great Chicago native street foods, about class identity,” he says “Hot dogs were cheap and something you could hold in your hand and eat on your 20-minute break from your factory job or your work site. Tacos are just basically Mexican hot dogs. That’s one way to look at it.”

Take Italian Beef. Savage says Italian Beef in Chicago drew its popularity from the fact it could be stretched, feeding as many people as possible. Italian beef and rib tips became popular in Chicago’s Black community. The Italians popularized tavern-style pizza. Cutting it into smaller squares meant being able to share with larger groups of people.

“These are all foods of poverty and of creativity. The hot dog became sort of ubiquitous because it's cheap. It's a low barrier of entry to get into a business, especially back when Chicago had hot dog carts,” Savage says. They've been outlawed now for a long time thanks to the brick-and-mortar restaurant clout, which convinces officials that it's not safe to sell food from a cart.”

The hot dog spot Left Bank in Lake Forest is reflective of this trend away from stands to brick and mortar stores. Left Bank’s roots can be tracked to a hot dog stand opened at Forest Park Beach in the early 1960s by Bob and Gertie Pasquesi. The Pasquesis would eventually open the Left Bank on North Bank Street in Lake Forest.

Left Bank changed hands a few times and in 2020, Susan Simms, a City of Lake Forest employee, purchased the restaurant and revived it after it had experienced a bit of a rough patch. It now resembles a quaint European café.

“The building was originally, from what I understand, a barber shop, so there’s still the original light from the barber shop outside. It’s very small and narrow, and there’s seating for just 15 people. It’s just an interesting building,” Simms says.

“It was very dark, so I brought it back to its original color.”

Simms has also revived some of the original touches that date back to the stand at the beach. She serves Scott Petersen hot dogs, bucking the trend of using Vienna Beef, which by far dominates the Chicago-area market, and returned to a sloppy joe—which she calls the “not-so-sloppy joe”—recipe that was created by the Pasquesis.

“I do all the original stuff and then I’ve added some things of my own, but everything we have is homemade and from scratch,” she says. “So, I think that’s part of the draw and the charm for everyone.”

In addition to its working class roots, there are other reasons the hot dog exploded in popularity. It’s association with summer and barbecues and ballparks.

The popularity of the hot dog today is due in large part to Jewish immigrants who, for lack of a better phrase, turned wiener production into something of an art form. Someone had to supply all of those street vendors with dogs, and Jewish entrepreneurs stepped up to the plate. The challenge was if they wanted to be kosher.

“Jewish food producers had to decide whether they wanted to primarily market to fellow Jews who keep Kosher or whether they were going to sell to everybody,” Savage says. “Even if it’s all beef they couldn’t get kosher because there wasn’t a rabbi there to make sure the knives are sharp enough and things like that.”

It's tough to operate a hot dog stand and market just to Orthodox Jews, Savage says. You may have lots of friends at the synagogue but plenty of non-Jews love hot dogs too. It’s an economic choice. It’s part of the multicultural aspect of food in Chicago generally. Initially hot dogs were marketed as kosher, but they weren’t kosher enough for many practicing Jews.

“Kosher meant extra clean, extra careful. Foods stands had a reputation for being a dirty place, a greasy spoon where you’re going to get food poisoning,” says Savage. “When McDonald’s and White Castle started, they designed their stores to be shiny, a wholesome thing that meant cleanliness.”

Nathan Handwerker, the son of a poor Jewish family in Poland, immigrated to the United States and opened his famous hot dog stand, Nathan’s, on Coney Island in 1916. Now an iconic brand with thousands of stores worldwide, Nathan’s Famous is also home to the 4th of July hot dog Eating Contest. The company sold more than 700 million hot dogs in 2022.

While Nathan’s advertised their dogs as kosher-style, which appealed to the broader American market, they were not made according to kosher standards. Hebrew National came along in 1905, founded by Theodore Krainen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and raised the bar for kosher standards but it wasn’t until the 1990s that fully kosher hot dogs became widely available and a staple within Jewish Orthodox community.

Today grocery shoppers who like a good hot dog will find dozens of options in the hot dog aisle. The original hot dog entrepreneurs would be pleased to learn that a pack of hot dogs can be found in the refrigerators of millions of Americans. Its rise to stardom is a tale of tenacity, taste, and timing.

If you’re looking for entrepreneurs, you’d do well to pop into Little Island in Evanston. Another Vienna Beef Hall of Fame member, the legendary hot dog shop was opened nearly 60 years ago by the Siegel family and has been owned the past 40 years by Kevin Craig, who toils away in the kitchen just about every day.

Craig and Little Island serve a wide variety of Vienna Beef dogs as well as a selection of other sandwiches, including a popular cheddar burger and cheese fries made with famous Merkts cheese from Wisconsin. The restaurant retains its original old school feel, and its popularity as an Evanston hot spot endures.

“I’m working harder now than when I was 20 years old,” Craig says. “I used to come here when the original owner was here. People come in now and they bring their kids, and their kids are bringing their kids. The same people have been coming here for years.”

In addition to the Chicago dog, over the decades the hot dog has been regionalized. Ironically, there’s the Coney Island dog popular in Michigan and Michigan Red Hots popular in Upstate New York. Slaw Dogs, which are slathered with coleslaw, are popular in the American south.

The dog also gets the gourmet treatment. Ira Fenton, the co-owner of the Mean Weiner in Highwood, grew up in Chicago and says he visited about every hot dog stand in the city looking for the perfect dog. His favorite was Flukey’s Dogs, which began in 1929 on legendary sandwich row on Maxwell Street.

Fenton and his partner, Sergio Rangel, took over the Mean Weiner about three years ago and have carried on its tradition of bringing fine hot dogs—and a whole lot of other delicacies, including its popular tacos—to the Highwood community.

While one might be tempted to call the Mean Weiner a dog joint fitting for Highwood’s high-end restaurant row, Fenton thinks it's just more about serving the same quality food it’s been serving for 13 years. Because of its hot dog innovations, so to speak, over its short history the Mean Weiner has developed a larger, regional reputation, not unlike legendary Doug’s Dogs in Chicago.

“All day long we get people who drive in from Zion or Kenosha who just want to try out our menu,” Fenton says.

Because of its long, rich history in Chicago, hot dog shops have served as a kind of community center. Kids hang out after school. Workers pop in for lunch. Retirees gather and shoot the breeze. While tasty, the hot dog also has social appeal.

“What began as a hot dog stand in 1977 grew into what has become a local icon,” says the owners of Michael’s in Highland Park. “We have been through a lot over the years, and we proudly serve our wonderful North Shore community for generations to come.”

While the hot dog has evolved and even been revolutionized over its more-than-a-century lifespan, one constant remains. Said Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry:

“Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog.”