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My kids (and all of us) were craving Amazing Hot Dog. We couldn't go to AHD so AHD came home tonight: Hand cut; twice cooked fries: Bacon wrapped "Amazings": One in the fryer: A Hawaii 5-0 and one very satisfied customer: "Now THATS a HOT DOG!!!!"

OK! OK! OK! We'll go TODAY!! Whatever you say boss, I live to serve thee. YOur wish is my command. (can you stop beating me up now? LOL) PM me if anyone else just happens to be going today and wants to share a table. Probably going around 1PM.

Hey guys, Matt and I have returned from our "Mental health" trip to Florida. Our bodies are well rested and our minds are clear. we are ready to move on with the rebiulding of Amazing Hot Dog!!..We are just waiting for the Landlords insurance company to give us the green light and begin work. I'll keep you posted. I wanted to share a few food related pictures from our fishing trip on wednesday. Matt and I both caught Kingfish aka King Mackerel. It was just what the doctor ordered. Eric

Cool, I'll warn the neighbors.

Here's a few more pics:

No offense taken. This whole situation is so unbelievable it almost humorous. I gotta keep it light or it becomes REALLY heavy. Thanks for the show of support, TongoRad

The Hot dog antiques were boxed up and taken to the restoration company for cleaning. They were pretty protected by the enclosure and the windows. We are going to probably drop cucumbers from the menu and we are considering adding a hot dog referring to the fire in some way. Jason will be happy to hear that it will probably be pretty spicy using sambal perhaps. We are considering elongating the front counter which will then push the soda fountain closer to the door bya foot or so in turn giving us a little bit more room behind the cashier. We could then add a limeade dispenser, you know the ones that constantly circulate the product. Looks nicer than the pail with a spigot I suppose, LOL!! So I am looking forward to FLA. I had a minor sore throat the friday before the fire and it has been severely aggravated by the soot and constant talking I've been doing over the last week. I now sound like Harvey Firestein with larangitus. The doc says I have to just shut up and let my vocal cords rest. That's like telling me not to eat, but I'll do my best. Eric

A most recent picture from yesterday: Matt and I are going to decompress in Florida for a few days (Sunday through Thursday) This should give the insurance companies some time to decide who pays for what. If all goes well, and we have an answer from the landlords ins co, we could concievable schedule contractors for the following Monday and begin final demo and plan the rebuild. We are doing our level best to keep our heads up and truthfully some days it aint easy, our mental health jaunt to FLA should serve us well and we'll be raring to go upon our return. I want to personally thank the EG comunity for your support and kind words. I'll post more details as they become available. Eric

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all your well wishes and patronage over the last 6 weeks. It's hard to believe its only been 6 weeks. We are trying to keep our chins up and know that we have overcome many hurdles in this process and this one is just another bump in the road in the history of Amazing Hot Dog. The clean up began yesterday whith dehumidifyers and a clean up crew to remove the decintegrated cieling tiles off the floor. The dehums will run all day today and the crew will be back on Monday to begin cleaning the walls etc.. Then the search begins for contractors. We used alot of friends the first time around who did alot of things as their side job. This worked ok when we weren't paying rent and time was not as much as an issue. Oh, there's also the joy of dealing with the insurance company and all that. Here's a link to my shutterfly pictures of the tragedy. Thanks again for your support and look for our re-opening soon. Eric and Matt

Antonio's Mozzarella Factory in Springfield imports it. They also make some really great fresh water mozz in various sizes including Pearlini (small pearl like balls of Mozz.) theu have great prepared foods there to. It's on South Springfield ave in Springfield. Eric

I'll be bringing killer wine to Michael's on Sunday for the Super Bowl. A Calera Selleck 2000 and a 1998 Beurenard CDP Rouge Speaking of super.......... that's what lunch was today. Both the short ribs ravioli app. and the stuffed pork tenderloin were without question NYC quality.....and very reasonably priced. and Lou...you're a mensch . thanks for everything. See you soon.... And for you e-gulleteers who have never been.......GO the American Grill is incredible AND reasonably priced. By the way here is a shoutout and a huge thank you for the following restaurants I discovered as a result of E-Gullet (besides An American Grill) China 46 Saigon Republic Mee Thai Fascino Brookside Thai Mo' Pho Wondee An Amazing Hot Dog (its is TRULY amazing..been there 3 times since it opened!!) I'm sure there are probably a few others but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. the journey is the prize.... Jeff ← WOW, Thanks for the shout out!! It's folks like you that have made our first three weeks AMAZING!! New saying at AHD--"Pleasing Hot Dog Freaks for over Three Weeks", LOL!!! Eric

This is going to sound strange, but Berta's has THE BEST Linguine in White Clam sauce that I have ever had..PERIOD!!! I have been known to order take out of this and drive from West Orange to pick it up!! It is a must have IMHO. Eric

The people who own Giambotta came in and had a few dogs. Really nice folks. There restaurant is a family style italian place similar to, but in no way trying to imitate Carmine's in the same way AHD isn't trying to imitate Rutt's Hut. We are our own gig and so to is Giambotta going to be. Eric

I look forward to meeting you Scott. Make sure you introduce yourself when you come in. Eric

We are sorry to hear about some people's inconvenience on Saturday, when we unfortunately ran out of food. We were lucky to garner some exciting press, but if you missed out in any way on trying one of our dogs, please come by another time - introduce yourself - and we'll do our best to accomodate you. We actually sold 1,000 dogs in 24 hours and had no way to anticipate the crowd. We have debriefed our staff since Saturday and are adding an additional person to just bag orders, and there will be 2 of us doing toppings rather than just one. We are limited by the square footage of our kitchen and were operating at absolute maximum capacity. Again Matt and I sincereley appologize for any inconvenience that was experienced, and hopefully you will come by another time to try out our food. We are grateful and appreciate you, our customers and will do everything we can to make your experience at Amazing Hot dog a pleasant one. Eric and Matt

BURP!!!! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

As the smoke clears from our opening week, I am compelled to compose this post offering a world of thanks to the Egullet community. I am truly humbled and overwhelmed by the positive response we have recieved from the members of Egullet. A special thanks to Jason and Rachel Perlow who have been incredibly supportive during our first week. When Jason is in the restaurant he isn't shy about schooling newbies (aren't we all newbies?") on the fine art of ordering off our menu. Thanks for that. Thanks for all who have gone to bat for us via their posts on the various forums with an Amazing Hot dog thread. Thanks to Rosie Saferstein and Curlz for there continued support, (and for babysitting my wife in my absence) There have been so many Egulleters in this week and we are grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Eric and Matt

HMMM, burgers, What's a burger? My vote is Pal's Cabin too. Eric

Holly: Forgive my ignorance, but how would you cut them if not shoestring style? ---Guy ← The cut I prefer is 3/8" or 1/4" ← Holly, I'm pretty sure that we're at 3/8ths, I'll check the die tomorrow. We are definatley NOT as small as Mickey D's, which I consider more of a shoestring cut. Either way, i'm pretty darn proud of my fries and pleased with how we have been able to apply the belgiun technique to a quick serve retail environment. There's alot of labor(albeit labor of love) involved but to me it's all worth it!! I think I just realized that in your post you weren't actually saying that we serve shoestring cut fries, I think you were just stating your general annoyance when (other) places go to all the trouble and cut em shoestring...eh It's late, and my brain is....well....FRIED. hope to see you again soon, Eric

OOPSY!! Hours are now posted on the home page of our website. They are: Monday thru Friday 10 AM to 8PM Saturday 11AM to 8PM Closed Sundays Will check my greeting on our answering service tomorrow

Porkpa, I appologize for your less than stellar experience at Amazing Hot Dog. We have addressd the issue with our team and are checking internal temperatures throughout the day to make sure it doesn't happen again. Please see me (Eric) the next time you come in so I can make it right. Eric

Although I suppose they could have been there today going through last minute, pre-opening stuff. ← Thankfully we are well prepared for our big opening day. We took the day to reflect on all that has gone on since Matt and I had our first meeting on March 29th 2005 over burgers at Pal's Cabin. It's hard to believe that it has been that long. I remembered the early days when Matt was still working and living in Manhattan. I spent my days scouring the Jersey landscape both city and country looking for that right location. With digital camera in hand and cell phone fired up I snapped away and made many a phone call to realtors and landlords and to Matt with either excitement or disappointment on the days finds. I scrolled through the pictures of possible locations today and had to LOL at the sorry messes that I actually thought had potential. My true desire to own a restaurant clearly blurred (an oxymoron) my vision in the early exploratory days of the then nameless, Amazing Hot Dog. Towards the end of Matt's apartment lease in NYC, he came out here one night a week to begin the menu planning, recipe testing and sound boarding process of ideas, including finding a name. I had already posted this post I liked TongoRads suggestion of Perfectly Frank and thought I would use it until Matt and I began playing around with using the word HAUTE DOG to indicate something different. We soon came up with Amazing Haute Dog. We sat with it for a while and changed it to its current configuration: AMAZING HOT DOG. We immediately secured the services of BizLogo.com and over the next few months created our logo. I was reminded by reading the Name Game post above that our original idea was to try and be all things to all people. I must have been insane. I also noticed that my post dated March 14th I was still working alone; Matt had not yet entered the picture, but by the time I posted again an May 13th, I began using the word WE. Interesting historical archive; this Egullet thing. And so, Eric and Matt join together in their quest to rock the hot dog world. We had done allot of footwork in the first few months and by the time the July meeting of the Verona board of adjustments, we had signed on the dotted line on a location, had our logo designed, our name on it's way to the trademark office, our menu planned out, we were "on a roll" so to speak. We figured to open October one. Little did we know that the hoops we had to jump through were just beginning. We shook off the initial shock that we didn't get approval in just one meeting, and continued to cross some T's and dot some I's. We were using the Millburn Starbucks as our headquarters and played the waiting game, spending long mornings with the newspaper and eventually bought a laptop. There was no Board of Adjustments meeting in August so we had to wait until September 8th for our next shot at approval. We had gathered the Dream Team once again. This team consisted of our attorney, architect, engineer, meteorologist, ventilation expert, and chef (that's me). We were pretty certain that we had it in the bag. In the 11th hour, our attorney felt we needed more strength in the ventilation testimony as it was a sticking point being made by a neighboring resident of our location, so he asked for an adjournment. It was a prudent move on his part, but one that took both Matt and me completely by surprise. We were devastated. But with chins up, we met the next morning at Starbucks and discussed the next move. We went into "what if" mode and decided to again scour the landscape for a location to fall back on. We proceeded to drive hundreds of NJ highway miles over the next few weeks, eating our way into oblivion at many NJ Hot dog spots. BTW our favorites were Libby’s Lunch in West Paterson, and Hiram’s over Callahan's. We also like the Dog House on RT 4 I think it was. Anyway, we came up with nothing as far as locations went. It was disappointing to say the least. To make things worse, the next meeting was being held during Yom Kippur and we (our attorney and ourselves) are Jewish so we weren't heard again until November 10th. The final 2 months before approval were painfully uneventful. We did however rent a commercial kitchen and did final testing of our recipes and photographed our hot dogs to create our training manual for our employees. Finally our perseverance paid off and we were approved by unanimous decision. Thirty days later it was memorialized and 10 days after that it was un-appealable. On November 11th, we called all the vendors who were waiting in the wings for our approval and work began the following Monday. The construction has gone very well as seen in the pictures I have posted here. I want to thank the Egullet community for riding the roller coaster with us, and I look forward to serving you. When all is said and done, "we're just two local Jersey guys who want to sell hot dogs." Thank you for your continued support of AMAZING HOT DOG. It truly is "Time to make the hot dogs" Eric Edited after spellchecking

I look forward to meeting you Zhelder. Make sure you introduce yourself when you come in. Eric

Well folks, we have successfully passed all of our inspections and have been issued a Certificate of Occupancy!! We have a few, very minor concerns to take care of, none of which were "deal breakers. Matt and I are relieved that this chapter of the AMAZING HOT DOG story is over and we are ever so close to cooking our first dog. We are well on schedule for our January 16th opening day. We have a few housekeeping items to tackle, our hi tech cash register system to learn, our employees to train, our food prep to do and we're good to go. Thanks for all your support during the past few months, and please please please feel free to stop in prior to our opening (and certainly after) LOL if you are in the area. Eric Edited for gramatical correctiveness

In complete anticipation of passing all our inspections today and recieving our C.O., My partner and I are taking our wives out tonight to The Strip House. Hey, just because we sell hot dogs, doesn't mean we don't appreciate the finer stuff, although ain't nuthin finer than a good hot dog. What have your experiences been here?