History Is For The Dogs

History Is For The Dogs!

By Don Rittner

In 1932 you could buy a gallon of milk for less than fifty cents, fill up your gas tank for less than a dollar, and be thrilled that Ameilia Earhart had just crossed the Atlantic on a solo flight.

It also was the year that a small family restaurant, no larger than a railroad car, opened in a crowded street in downtown Troy at 111 Congress. The ‘Quick Lunch’ was the vision of Greek immigrants who wanted to operate their own family business. It was a time when the country was in the grip of a deep depression with more than 1/4 of the labor force workless.

The Quick Lunch menu was simple. They served up a small 3 1/2 inch hot dog on a bun with special meat sauce, mustard, and onions. The hot dogs were made locally at the Troy Pork Store down the street on the corner of Fourth and Ferry. It too was founded by an immigrant (German) Charlie Comertz, a few years earlier in 1918.

We think of hot dogs as being American as apple pie but they’ve been around for centuries. Hot dogs are technically sausages and sausages were mentioned in Homer's Odyssey way back in the 9th Century.

The city of Frankfurt Germany makes claim that the ‘frankfurter’ was developed there in 1484. Another claim is that Johann Georghehner, a butcher, living in Coburg, Germany made the "dachshund" or "little-dog" in the late 1600's and traveled to Frankfurt to promote it.

Vienna (Wien in German), Austria claims ownership pointing to the word "wiener," another name for the hot dog.

How did the ‘dauchsund’ end up on a bun? One story says a German immigrant sold them from a push cart in New York City's Bowery during the 1860's along with milk rolls and sauerkraut. In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand selling 3,000+ dachshund sausages in a milk roll his first year.

Hundreds of them were eaten at the Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and that same year they became a hit at baseball parks as Chris Von de Ahe, owner of a St. Louis bar and the St. Louis Browns baseball team sold them.

The term "hot dog" was coined in April 1901 at the New York Polo Grounds as Harry M. Stevens (1855-1934) sent his salesmen out to purchase all the dachshund sausages and rolls they could find. Shortly after, they were selling hot dogs from portable hot water tanks yelling "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" Hearing this in the press box, sports cartoonist Tad A. Dorgan of the New York Journal drew a cartoon of warm barking dachshund sausages snuggled in rolls. Since he couldn’t spell "dachshund" he simply wrote "hot dog!"

The hot dog and bun was introduced during the St. Louis "Louisiana Purchase Exposition" in 1904 by Bavarian Anton Feuchtwanger. He loaned white gloves to his patrons to hold his hot sausages. Since most of the gloves were never returned, he asked for help from his brother-in-law, a baker, and the bun was invented. Also "Hot Dog" was used as an exclamation on banners above the vendors at the World Fair.

The thought of hot "dogs" became so ingrained in the public’s conscience that the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce banned the term "hot dog" on the Coney Island boardwalk in 1913, and instead called them "Coney Island Hots."

In 1954, a young local marine stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow missed having his Troy hot dogs, so he convinced the embassy staff to fly in a few dozen on a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines for the Ambassador’s 54th birthday party. "Operation Hot Dogs" made local and national news and the name of the Quick Lunch was forever changed to the "Famous" Lunch. The Famous continues to serve up those little hot dogs after 67 years in business and they’re still made by the Troy Pork Store down the block!

As a boy living across the street, I would run over to the Famous and wolf down 8 dogs, french fries and a Canada Dry, and still have money left over for the best rice pudding in the world. In those days, Steve Vasil and his brother Nick, and Charlie Cagiandus would serve the packed house each day. Greek immigrants themselves, they started working at the Famous during the mid-50’s. Steve made the paper shortly after (the Record) when he cast his first vote as a new American citizen. As he put it, it was his "holiest moment," and the Record mentioned it in an editorial.

I was just a young boy no older than 6 or 7 when I started eating at the Famous, and I loved sitting in the booths. The wooden backs seemed to go up to the enameled steel ceiling. Each booth had a small "Juke Box" connected to the main player that was sitting by the phone booth at the far end of the eatery. A quarter got you three plays, mostly Elvis.

I would sit there for long periods of time, between bites, listening to the debates about everything under the sun. Steve, Charlie and Nick all had a point of view and loved to share it no matter what the subject. I probably learned more about world events in one hour at the Famous than a year’s worth at elementary school. Years later it dawned on me that it was only natural for free spirited discussions to take place there. Afterall, wasn’t democracy a Greek invention?

Most of the buildings on Congress between Fourth and Fifth are gone now. Nick and Charlie passed on and Steve and Nick’s wife Kay ran the Famous for a while later. Steve retired in 1996 and his son Scott, a graduate of RPI’s Industrial Engineering Department now carries on the tradition.

Many of the same folks I saw as a kid still eat there today. The spirited discussions still take place every day. The hot dogs are still great. The dessert pies and buns are made across the river in Watervliet. The rice pudding is still the best in the world and made in the back room. Elvis is still on the jukebox. The prices are right. The Famous represents plain old fashioned home town made food and real customer service -- a rarity.

I make it a habit to go to the Famous a few times every month. It’s like a security blanket. When it seems that everything in the world is going to pieces, sitting in the Famous for a few moments is like stepping back in time. Every so often, Steve pops out from the back, after helping Scott on a busy day, and I know things are just going to be fine. Some things should never change.