ON THE TABLE
The footlong chili cheese dog with onions at Bob’s Footlong in Fortuna, founded in 1949. Photo by Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
Bob’s Footlong Closing After 72 Years By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill onthetable@northcoastjournal.com
C
heyenne Moreno places a split open footlong hot dog on the flat-top grill behind the counter at Bob’s Footlong. The link hisses louder when she drops a grill press on it and turns to warm the bun on the neighboring grill. She flips the dog and covers it in cheese slices and an aluminum dome to speed the melting. A minute later, with the hot dog splayed over its mustard-streaked bun, she’s spooning on a flood of mild meatand-bean chili, asking more of the fluted paper tray than it can manage. Shredded cheese, a handful of chopped onions and Fortuna’s signature forearm-length chili cheese dog — destroyer of shirts and resolutions — is ready. According to the brief history on the shop’s website, Bob’s Footlong was founded in 1949 by Bob Broome and Lula Mclure as a mobile business set up at the Humboldt County Fair and later by the Fortuna movie theater on Main Street. For the last three years, Cheyenne’s parents Jose and Tanya Moreno have owned and run the local institution at the brick and mortar location on 12th Street, where it’s been slinging milkshakes, burgers, dogs and fries since 1967.
Now the restaurant is for sale and the Morenos have announced it’s shutting its doors Nov. 19. On a Friday afternoon, Tanya Moreno takes a break from the grill between rushes and sits in the last wood-grained laminate booth in the back. She straightens her tie-dyed Bob’s shirt and rubs her eyes. Owning a restaurant, she admits, was her husband’s dream, not hers, and with his other job, he hasn’t been able to be at the restaurant as much as they’d initially hoped. The first year, Tanya says, customer nostalgia ran high and business was good. “We had heard the community say they wanted it to stay the same,” she says. To that end, she reached out to Karen and Mike Smith, whose parents Ozzie and Joanne bought Bob’s from its founders before passing it down to them, and got the original chili recipe, which bubbles in the kitchen today. Tanya says it was well received, though some, she adds with a chuckle, insisted the new owners had changed the chili. But for the addition of a fancy red espresso machine, Tanya, who has been coming to Bob’s for milkshakes and hot dogs since she was a teenager, says the Continued on next page » northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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