Hi to all the slingers, all over the world, from the Hot Dog King, down under, in Australia.
My name is Steve, which seems to be a good thing in this place. I live just outside of Sydney, Australia. Its about 30 miles (50 kilometres) from the landmarks, like the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. Aussies haven’t been educated in the world of hot dogs like Americans, in particular. Steve’s reference to “the shrivelled green weenie” would be a high point to many Aussies. Our buns are way too big, so the ratio of sausage to bread is all wrong.
All my life, I wondered why Americans loved hot dogs and Australians did not. I have not visited America yet but look forward to the “Trip of Discovery” in the not too distant future. For many years I had the vision of a 1950’s diner style, complete with jukebox, selling hot dogs and milkshakes called “Hot Dog Heaven”. I was lucky not to be locked up when I told Australians of my dream. I learned to keep my mouth shut, until now. (PS. If you take my idea and run with it, Steve has my address for the royalty checks!)
To satisfy my Hot Dog dream, I searched the internet and found two important things. Steve’s Hot Dog Profits and a company in China that builds Hot Dog carts. I bought Hot Dog Profits. I read and I listened and learned so much. I bought a hot dog cart from China. When the Hot Dog cart arrived, it was in a packing crate and needed some assembly. I wasn’t over the moon with the build quality of the chassis (trailer bits) and indeed it broke before we got the cart home. The cooking body was pretty good and looked great so the decision was made to get it mounted on a custom built chssis. One thousand Dollars later, my girlfriend is giving me even stranger looks than before and wondered about my sanity, once again.
Now, we have a trailer. While waiting for the trailer to be built, shipped and rebuilt, I have been trying all the hot dogs and buns on the market but haven’t found anything that really excites the taste buds. Then, Sydney’s very first Costco opened. Went to have a look along with 3 million other people and while waiting to get in, had a hot dog. All this talk about getting supplies from Sam’s and Costco made sense now. This was a hot dog like no other. NOW I understood why Americans get excited about Hot Dogs. Now we have a product to put our name to.
Hot Dog King is the home of “The Great American Hot Dog.”
The response to “our” product has been amazing. We have sold The Great American Hot Dog to American tourists and they agree that it is a great American Hot Dog. I think our advantage over Costco is that we cook with love and pride.
Some things of interest.
We sell the Great American Hot Dog for $5.00. This compares to a Big Mac here in Australia at $5.45
We sell drinks (regular cans) for $2.50. Some other vendors (not Hot Dog) are selling cans for $3. About the best we can buy them for is 65 cents per can for Coke products and 50 cents for Pepsi brands. Water we buy for 35 cents.
Packets of chips here wholesale for just under $1.
The package looks like this – 1 Great Dog, chips and drink for $7.50.
-Steve Wilkins
Sydney, Australia
Hey Steve,