Why are all these people
waiting in the unrelenting heat for two hours?
a rock star? may be the latest version of the iPhone?
No.
they're something quite old: a Nathan's
Famous hot dog with a side of fries.
crowds lined up for hours one
Saturday afternoon when the legendary
Coney Island institution offered its
original hotdogs for , the price
it was when Nathan Handwerker a Polish
immigrant started serving 100 years ago
this year.
Yes.
Nathan's is celebrating its 100-year anniversary.
Nathan and selling his
hotdogs at a small stand on the corner
of Surf and Stillwell avenues. He made
his own hotdogs using a secret recipe
developed by his wife Ida.
Nathan's continues to use that recipe
So
about this dog? No! not that dog!
Well maybe it's you get when you
first bite through the casing, followed
by the savory explosion of Angus beef
and spices. Maybe. For me, the ingredient
that makes this hot dog above
all others is its history. For a
restaurant such a simple
construct: a sausage on a bun, this
has had amazing durability; it has
survived the rise and fall and rise
again of Coney Island. It is
depressions social upheaval, even
hurricanes.
Nathan's is a huge chain now
with dozens of locations selling
millions of hotdogs and of course.
there's the famous Hot Dog Eating Contest

in 1916 that year the record was 13 hot
dogs eaten but there is still something
special about going to the corners of
Surf and Stillwell Avenue on a summer
day a dog and sitting on the
boardwalk somehow it makes the dog taste
better and my son likes
them so much he thinks the hot dog was
invented here
no Nathan didn't invent the hot dog he
just made it perfect
happy Anniversary Nathan's and coming