National Hot Dog Month Tour Venues

It's June 27 and the National Hot Dog Month Tour is set to begin! Drew Bennet (from the Benspark blog) and myself will be touring four New England States eating a hot dog a day at a different venue each day in July. We kick started the tour today by visiting Pearl Meats in Randolph, MA. Business owners Bob Camelio and Marshall "Buddy" Lazaro gave us a tour of the facility and showed us what goes into their hot dogs.

The real fun begins on July 1 when I will eat the first hot dog of the tour at the stroke of midnight at Fenway Sausage Works in New Bedford, MA. From there, we'll be all over the place!

Here is a list of stops we plan to make throughout the month. While we will try to adhere to this schedule, weather may alter it over the course of July (we don't want to eat at a hot dog cart in a thunderstorm). If you want to know exactly where we'll be, follow me on Twitter  Follow @Hotdogman1964 or go "like" Hot Dog Stories on Facebook. As always, videos of each day's visit will be posted on Hot Dog Stories dot com.

Without further ado, here are the tour stops:

July 1:   Fenway Sausage Works, New Bedford, MA
July 2:   Zippity Do Dog, Framingham, MA
July 3:   Sullivan's, Boston, MA
July 4:   Cookout, My House! (with Pearl Franks on the Grill)
July 5:   The Dogfather, Worcester, MA
July 6:   Boomer's, Westborough, MA
July 7:   So Sabe's, Onset, MA
July 8:   Hot Dog Cart, Rochester, MA
July 9:   Larry Joe's New England Fire Pit, Bellingham, MA
July 10: Yank's Franks, Wells, ME
July 11: Gilley's, Portsmouth, NH
July 12: Flo's, Cape Neddick, ME
July 13: Snappy Dogs, Hopkinton, MA
July 14: Dell's, Wareham, MA
July 15: South Coast Coneys, Middleborough, MA
July 16: Onleyville New York System, Providence, RI
July 17: Beezer's, Northborough, MA
July 18: Simco's, Boston, MA
July 19: Tex Barry's, Taunton, MA
July 20: Tex Barry's, Attleborough, MA
July 21: Cookout @ The Beach (Pearls on the Grill)
July 22: Jimmie's, New Bedford, MA
July 23: Windy City Eats, Weymouth, MA
July 24: Harbor Dogs, Scituate, MA
July 25: Auggie Dogs, Methuen, MA
July 26: Hot Dog Annie's, Leicester, MA
July 27: That's My Dog, Attleboro, MA
July 28: Donna's Dawgs, Middleborough, MA
July 29: Naughty Dogs, New Bedford, MA
July 30: Fred's Franks, Wakefield, MA
July 31: Casey's Diner, Natick, MA

There you have it folks, the 2012 National Hot Dog Month Tour! Make sure you check in to be sure where we'll be. Last year, the schedule changed several times for a variety of reasons.

Happy National Hot Dog Month!

National Hot Dog Month Tour 2012 Seeks Funding

With only six weeks to go until National Hot Dog Month, my team and I are still seeking funding to make the project happen. We have secured new camera equipment and some corporate sponsors, but we still need one very important thing to make it happen: GAS MONEY!

We are also looking for lodging in Old Orchard Beach and/or Wells, Maine for a mid-week run through some Maine establishments. If you own an Inn, hotel or motel and can spare a couple of rooms mid-week, we will shout about you from the rooftops and list you as a tour sponsor! We are also accepting tee-shirts, hats and other promotional items to hand out along the way. If you have promotional items you'd like to see on the tour, contact me.

Seriously, we are going to 31 venues (there are two cook-outs on the tour) and shooting 31 videos plus doing 31 write ups AND we'll have some supplemental videos as well. Once the tour is over, we are going to pour through the hundreds of hours of footage from last year and this year and put together a 60-90 minute, feature length documentary. I will also be producing a book about the experience.

One of the best things we do is bring publicity to small business people who are in the hot dog business. The media attention and exposure these joints get really helps them. It is a lot of fun doing the tour, but it's also a lot of work. There are literally weeks of planning and during July, the tour is a 24 hour a day job.

This year, Drew Bennet from the Benspark Blog is the official tour photographer and videographer. Adding another person to the team doubles the travel expenses as we both have to travel from our homes to each location every day. We just need some help with the gas and in turn, we will give you gobs of publicity- if that's what you desire. If you want to remain anonymous, that's OK too.

Click HERE to find out more about the film.

My Doctor's Opinion on National Hot Dog Month 2012

I am having hernia surgery tomorrow. Tuesday, I visited my Doctor for a check up and asked him to weigh in on eating a hot dog a day to celebrate National Hot Dog Month 2012.

Last year, some folks had a lot to say about this being an unhealthy practice.

See what the Doctor has to say....

National Hot Dog Month 2012 Funding Update

Wednesday I started planning National Hot Dog Month 2012. It is going to be BIGGER and BETTER than last year. My team and I will be making 31 videos of different hot dog venues as I eat a hot dog a day during the month of July. We will also be producing a documentary about the experience and writing a book.



You can get more info on how to help with the project HERE.

We have already had some sponsors sign on, get on the bandwagon and help make National Hot Dog Month 2012 a big success!

Thanks to Jim Kukral and The Dogfather for helping to fund this ambitious project.

A Hot Dog a Day in July: Recap

Well, July is over and so is my mission to eat a hot dog a day in celebration of National Hot Dog Month. I had a lot of fun with this project and I got a lot of good feedback from friends, family, fans and hot dog lovers everywhere. I met some great new people and reconnected with some old friends. That's the great thing about hot dogs- they bring people together. I have seen ex cons and cops eating hot dogs together at hot dog joints, drag queens and construction workers, old an young, rich and poor- it just doesn't matter who you are, the hot dog unites us all.

Here are some photos from my 31 different stops, in order of appearance.

Day one was at the Kayem plant. Executive Chef, Susanna Tollini, put out quite a spread and was a real good sport. I also got to tour the plant (no pictures though).

On Day two I shared a hot dog with the big green fella at Frankenstein's in Wareham.

Day three featured a cookout at home with some of the hot dogs the good people at Kayem gave me.

Day four's hot dog was at the Kool Kone beach shack in Marion.

On day five I chowed down at the Dog House of Medfield as owner Ross Scanlon looked on.

On day five I got a Hula Dog at Zippity Do Dog in Framingham.

Day seven featured a Michigan Dog at Archie's on a Roll in Marlborough.

On day eight I had the Friday special of the day- a Mediterranean dog at Snappy Dogs.

On day nine, I had a hot dog at the James "Cy" Belmore Field House at the Natick Little League fields.

Day ten found me at Dee's Hot Dogs in New Bedford.

Day eleven's hot dog was chowed at Hot Dogs and More in Rochester.

On day twelve I ate the ceremonial first hot dog at the Nashua Silver Knights' $1000 hot dog night.

I got to throw out the first pitch too!

Day 13 found me at The Recession Stand in Southborough.

C&R Hot Dogs in Holliston was the fourteenth stop.

Bill's Dog House in Framingham was day fifteen's dog.

The sixteenth hot dog was eaten at a barbecue at the beach with friends and family- once again courtesy of Kayem.

The lovely ladies at Gary's Best in New Bedford hosted me, Mrs. HDM, and Little Miss on day seventeen.

Devo's Dogs in Marlborough was the choice on day eighteen.

Bruce and Jeannie Farago hosted day nineteen at Jeannie's Weenies in Holliston.

The twentieth stop was at Fred's Franks in Wakefield.

On day twenty one, I returned to the town of my youth to dine at Dog Gone Ron's in Needham.

The Edge Diner in Shrewsbury hosted day twenty two.

On day twenty three, I went to Spillane Field in Wareham to catch the Cape League Wareham Gatemen game, and have a hot dog from the crazy gals at the concession stand.

On day twenty four, Mrs. HDM, Little Miss and I went to Naughty Dogs in Fairhaven.

Day twenty five found me at a regional hot dog icon, George's Coney Island in Worcester.

Day twenty six found me at a place that's only been open for a month, Eugene's Coffee and Hot Dogs in West Newton.

Day twenty seven (my birthday) featured a 2011 Camaro from my blogging buddy Drew Bennet and a trip to Larry Joe's New England Fire Pit in Bellingham.

The twenty eighth stop found me back in Worcester at the Dogfather.

The twenty ninth stop was the first place I ever remember eating a hot dog and the oldest continuously run hot dog joint in Massachusetts, if not the world. The Casey family has been serving hot dogs since 1890 at Casey's Diner in Natick.

The thirtieth stop was at a little cart called That's My Dog in Plainville.

The thirty first and final stop was at another area icon, Nick's Original Coney Island Weiners in Fall River.

It was a heck of a good time eating at 31 different places in July. The best part is my cholesterol went DOWN 30 POINTS! So much for hot dogs being bad for you.

The Hot Dog Truck will not be updated until next week. Mrs. HDM and I are going to Maine for a few Hot Dog Stories!

You can see a video of the funniest moments of my National Hot Dog Month tour on Hot Dog Stories.

National Hot Dog Month 2011: Hot Dog Boy

A Hot Dog a Day Number 31: Nick's Original Coney Island Weiners in Fall River

The quest is finished. I have had a hot dog a day for the past month. Today was day 31 and I went to another long standing establishment- a joint that has been open since 1920: Nick's Original Coney Island Weiners at 534(ish) South Main Street in Fall River, Massachusetts.

I chose Nick's as the final stop for a couple of reasons. First, it was fairly close to where I was hanging out this weekend. Second, along with Casey's Diner (in business since 1890) and George's Coney Island (in business since 1918), Nick's represents as one of the three oldest hot dog joints in Eastern Massachusetts. These three hot dog joints are the icons of the industry in this area- I would have been remiss had they not been included in the quest. So Nick's completed the trifecta.

It's a small shop that hasn't changed much in its 91 years. The little school desks date back to 1894 and came from a school in Tiverton, Rhode Island. All the desks are right handed- back in those days if you were a lefty, the teachers "retrained" you to write right handed.

Current owners Fred and Marcy Beaudry have added to the menu. They serve a lot of fish dishes on Thursday and Friday nights, but the main attraction is the hot dogs and related fare.

One bit of related fare is Nick's Coffee Milk. Coffee milk is a staple drink in hot dog joints in these parts and Nick's has the only dairy infused coffee milk in existence in Massachusetts. Coffee milk is like chocolate milk, except a coffee syrup is used to make it instead of chocolate syrup. It's quite good.

Most coffee milk these days is mixed fresh or distributed in plastic containers. At Nick's instead of coming in plastic containers, the coffee milk comes in the old school, metal dairy containers. They're able to serve it this way because they're grandfathered in on the codes.

Another signature item at Nick's is the hand cut fries. They go through 70 pounds of potatoes a day on average- one by one.

They have a unique and proprietary frying system that cranks out the fresh cut fries nice and crispy. Most of the fresh cut fries I have had tend toward the soggy side. These were YUMMY!

Of course the biggest item is the Coney Island hot dogs. They cook up the Coney Island sauce fresh daily. The original owner, Nick Pappas, brought the recipe to Fall River from Philadelphia. He had befriended a Coney Island hot dog stand operator who had perfected his recipe while working at the original Nathan's on Coney Island. The Philadelphia vendor gave Nick the recipe with two caveats: don't share the recipe and STAY OUT OF PHILLY! To this day, the original recipe remains unchanged and is treated like a state secret at Nick's. They have added a spicier version of the sauce which is the original recipe with the addition of some "Cajun spices" to heat things up a bit.

Nick's has lots of cache' in the hot dog world as many famous people have eaten there. The wall is covered with photos of folks who have eaten there.

Rocky Marciano was a regular. His family still stops in to this day.

Bobby Kennedy ate at Nick's.

So did this guy!

Carl Switzer, Alfalfa and George "Spanky" McFarland from the Little Rascals have chowed Nick's Coneys.

Curly, Larry and Moe ate here too.

Perhaps the most notable recent visitor was President Bill Clinton who stopped by while still in office. He stayed in the limo while the Secret Service guys came in for the dogs.

Lucille Ball....

Jackie Gleason....

...and Jack Haley- the tin man from the classic 1939 film the Wizard of Oz all scarfed down Coney Island hot dogs at Nicks. There is so much history here.

But Nick's is all about the hot dog- the Coney Island hot dog to be exact. Properly dressed, it is composed of a Kayem Old Tyme frank on a steamed roll. The mustard goes on the dog first, then the sauce, then it's topped with chopped onions.

I ordered one and....

CHOWED DOWN!!!!!

And thus the 2011 Eat a Hot Dog a Day in honor of National Hot Dog Month quest came to a close.

Stop by Nick's for a Coney Island dog, coffee milk and fries. You will LOVE it! Tell Fred and Marcie "the Hotdogman sent me."

Happy National Hot Dog Month!!!!!!

See the video of my visit to Nick's Original Coney Island Weiners on Hot Dog Stories.