Amazing Hot Dog

[ejebud]

Congratulations. I think a Japanese restaurant was there before.  Are you BYO? 

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Rosie, Sorry, I skipped right by your post. I hang my head in shame!!

Yes there was Edo II in the space before us. And We won't have a liquor liscense so I guess it's "bring it on!!"

Eric

[Chris Amirault]

an AMAZING-a bacon wrapped CLASSIC.

The dogs will be flash fried to keep the natural casing intact to ensure a solid **SNAP** and to make the bacon on the AMAZING get crispy, but we will griddle one(sans bacon) untill we can convert you over.

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Hey, Eric. Click on this thread to check out a hot dog style that I discovered while in Tucson: the sonoran hot dog. It's quite famously wrapped in bacon, and has all sorts of fantastic toppings. You'd have to expand your toppings, but it might be worth it: you'd have the only Sonoran hot dogs that I know of on the east coast. Is that accurate, Holly?

[Hank]

Congratulations. I think a Japanese restaurant was there before.  Are you BYO? 

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Rosie, I am really curious about your question as to whether this was a BYO. What type of wine would you bring to a rest. that serves mainly hot dogs?

[Rosie]

LOL!!! Hank-- I have a reputation of always asking if a restaurant is BYO. What kind of wine? Doesn't Turley go with everything?

[ejebud]

an AMAZING-a bacon wrapped CLASSIC.

The dogs will be flash fried to keep the natural casing intact to ensure a solid **SNAP** and to make the bacon on the AMAZING get crispy, but we will griddle one(sans bacon) untill we can convert you over.

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Hey, Eric. Click on this thread to check out a hot dog style that I discovered while in Tucson: the sonoran hot dog. It's quite famously wrapped in bacon, and has all sorts of fantastic toppings. You'd have to expand your toppings, but it might be worth it: you'd have the only Sonoran hot dogs that I know of on the east coast. Is that accurate, Holly?

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Well gee, so much for originality!! My product is VERY much like a Sonoran Hot dog!! all referenced toppings in the link will be available at Amazing Hot Dog.

Well lookee here, 1 satisfied cutomer already!!

[M.X.Hassett]

Best of luck, I hope you find this site as usefull as Glenn and the folks at melt did.

[menton1]

Any options to have the dogs grilled?  I only like grilled dogs, a la Papaya King in NYC.

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YES!! We will have a griddle so thet WILL be an option. Not sure if we can do the bacon wrapped dogs that way, but testing will tell.

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Excellent! I'll look for the grand opening. I just like 'em simple, grilled, hot bun lightly toasted, mustard and sauerkraut. Save me a trip to 86th and 3rd in NY!

[phaelon56]

I'll attest to the fact that the french fries at Melt are outstanding. Fresh cut can only be better and Holly has a good point: people will beat a path to your door for outstanding fries.

Perhaps you could even bring a regional delicacy up to NJ and start a trend.

I have yet to try them but a thread on college campus food trucks brought up discussion on

Half Smokes

[glenn]

I really debated (mostly with myself) about the whole fry thing. Like Owen said, it's an important facet and, in my opinion, can increase business that my place and a place like yours might not get otherwise. I swear, some people come to melt specifically for the fries and everything else is secondary.

In the end, I decided it wasn't practical to go with fresh potatoes. Everything else is top notch - we change the oil probably too often, use a good oil, not to mention our fry machine cost an arm and a leg. However, the frozen fries we buy (simplex) are expensive and the profit margin isn't nearly as good as it would be with fresh potatoes. If I recall my calculations, the profit margin is close to 3 times more with real potatoes. (I'm not including the cost of the machine.) That's another aspect you might wanna consider.

[Holly Moore]

As good as the frozen fry may be, it will never be as good as a properly prepared fresh cut french fry.

That said, fresh cut fries require a committment to quality. The blanching process has to be followed. And, most importantly, the fries need to be finished fried in small batches and pretty much to order. If this won't be possible it is probably best to go the top quality frozen fry route. If it is possible, the world, including me, will be a path to your door.

[menton1]

I really debated (mostly with myself) about the whole fry thing.  Like Owen said, it's an important facet and, in my opinion, can increase business that my place and a place like  yours might not get otherwise.  I swear, some people come to melt specifically for the fries and everything else is secondary. 

In the end, I decided it wasn't practical to go with fresh potatoes.  Everything else is top notch - we change the oil probably too often, use a good oil, not to mention our fry machine cost an arm and a leg.  However, the frozen fries we buy (simplex) are expensive and the profit margin isn't nearly as good as it would be with fresh potatoes.  If I recall my calculations, the profit margin is close to 3 times more with real potatoes.  (I'm not including the cost of the machine.) That's another aspect you might wanna consider.

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If fresh potatoes are so much more profitable, why would't you go with those? Might be a bit more labor-intensive, but you can also bet that the taste would be about 1000% better than even the best frozen. And if folks are liking the fries now, you could probably make the 11 Oclock news if you switched to fresh. The other factor is that hardly anyone in the US uses fresh potatoes-- in Europe fresh potatoes for fries are ubiquitous!!

[glenn]

I simply don't have the facilities for one more machine or to store one more item. It came to a point where I had to eliminate a few cheeses from our menu due to lack of space. I'm amazed that we're able to put out what we do with the limited space we have. If it wasn't for that, I'd go with fresh fries in a heartbeat. It was simply a matter of priorities, like, do I get a waffle machine and do giant waffles or do I do fresh fries? I even had to rip out a couple of sinks (with the health department's blessing) to make room so 2 people could sort of move around. But I digress. And, like Holly said, fresh fries does take a commitment.

[Wishful thinking - Melt II will have a huge kitchen! ]

[phaelon56]

Or you could skip conventional fries and just serve giant plates of "butterfly potatoes" (disclosure: I fianlly tried some this summer after seeing peopel eat them for years - they actually look much more interesting than the eating experience that is delivered).

All you need is a big-ass power drill and a little stand to hold the potato. It was quite entertaining to watch these guys at the NY State Fair cranking out plates of these all day long with their homemade gizmo. It being the fair they can get away with charging $5 for a plate that consists of one large potato butterflied and fried.

[menton1]

When traveling in Belgium, we saw a "Frites" stand every 100 yards or so, and they are all tiny, maybe 6ftx10ft, they have TWO fryers for the fries and always use only fresh potatoes. Those were the best darn fries, ever!!

They really have quite an efficient use of space there.

[Curlz]

I'm amazed that we're able to put out what we do with the limited space we have. 

For those who haven't yet been to Melt (SHAME, SHAME!), trust me--Glenn has a tiny tiny kitchen. Some might even call it teeny tiny. If he says he doesn't have room for CHEESE...believe him!

[waves2ya]

Had dinner the other night at Epernay and - seeing how's it's in your prospectively new nabe - you ought to try their fries. Really perfect in the Belgian/Francais way with a delicious aioli mayo (including presentation), all for only $5.

[glenn]

Eric, I forgot to ask... how big will your burger be? Have you thought about the bun? Anything special about it? What kind of ketchup... Heinz or the like? What kind of mustard, or is it homemade? Homemade relish?

[ejebud]

Eric, I forgot to ask... how big will your burger be?  Have you thought about the bun? Anything special about it?  What kind of ketchup... Heinz or the like?  What kind of mustard, or is it homemade?  Homemade relish?

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JEESH !! you people want ALL my secrets!! LOL

Our burger is going to be the most unadvertised, under recomended, most hidden menu item we have. We are having it pureley out of neccesity. We are going to use a quality product of course, but we are a hot dog restaurant for pete's sake. It will be of normal hamburger bun size and will be cooked to perfection on our griddle. I suppose if someone wanted theirs deep fried, we could accomodate--who am I to judge? Ketchup will be Hienz pumped directly out of the institutional sized plasto-jug. Mustard will probably be Hebrew National deli mustard along with the bright yellow French's. No homemade relish however I am making my killer hot dog chili that is made with a little bit of bittersweet chocolate of all things. It's delicious.

Eric

[NJ2FLA]

Hello potential Verona neighbor Eric,

First of all good luck getting past the Verona board. I don't have any experience or can pull any strings for you. If your name was Tony you might have a bit more luck. Just kidding.

I know exactly where you are going to be located as I brought the TSX in for service recently and went over to grab a Taylor ham and cheese on a bagel from your neighbor. I saw the sign in the window.

A few questions, comments.

1. Watch the front end of your car pulling out of that lot.

2. Any idea what hours you will keep?

3. Take out adds in the Verona - CG times

4. Parking looks to be a bit tight, will you have a rear entrance?

5. Best of luck to you and if you need some opinions when it comes to recipe concoction time give me a call.

-NJ2FLA aka Scott

[ejebud]

Hello potential Verona neighbor Eric,

First of all good luck getting past the Verona board.  I don't have any experience or can pull any strings for you.  If your name was Tony you might have a bit more luck.  Just kidding.

I know exactly where you are going to be located as I brought the TSX in for service recently and went over to grab a Taylor ham and cheese on a bagel from your neighbor.  I saw the sign in the window.

A few questions, comments.

1.  Watch the front end of your car pulling out of that lot.

2.  Any idea what hours you will keep?

3.  Take out adds in the Verona - CG times

4.  Parking looks to be a bit tight, will you have a rear entrance?

5.  Best of luck to you and if you need some opinions when it comes to recipe concoction time give me a call.

-NJ2FLA aka Scott

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Scott, Thanks alot for your well wishes!! I'm not too worried about getting approved, most indicators are pointing towards YES.

1. I drive a lowered Audi S4, I am painfully aware of the driveway apron for the building *^&@%%!~%$^%&@!!?

2. Our hours will be 10-8 weekdays, 10-10 Friday and saturday and probably closed on Sundays.

3. We are not skimping on the Public Relation spending money.

4. No rear entrance, but alot of the other businesses are in and out except the salon.

5. We pretty much have our hot dog combos set. We are to begin testing the proper sequence of ingredients for each dog so we can have consistency. We are actually looking for a commercial kitchen to do this in hopefully on Friday of this week. If you know of any let me know. I have a relationship with the Union Elks lodge and they have a great kitchen,unfortunatley they have an affair on Friday evening. We also need to figure out the logistics of twice cooking the fries.

Thanks again for your support. I look forward to meeting you in the near future. If you see the lights on at the store, feel free to pop in.

Eric

[NJ2FLA]

Hey Eric,

I might agree about you on being closed on Sunday. You might want to park the car and watch the traffic in and out of Ray's Pizza for example to get a feel for that area. I know there is a ball field a block down but not sure when the games are played and you can't base hours on a field that is used 2-3 months out of the year.

[Rosie]

Montclair Times is another option for an ad.

[ejebud]

I am in need of a rentable commercial kitchen to further develop our menu. I am trying to rent the kitchen at the Union Elks lodge where we hold our monthly Les Marmitons events, but They may have cleaners coming in the day I need it. I want to rent a space from around 10AM to 3PM. We want to construct each hot dog figuring out the order of ingredients, and what we want the final product to look like. We also want to photograph each one and have the info available for training purposes. If you know of any possibilities, please let me know.

Thanks!!

Eric

[ejebud]

We had our 2nd Zoning board meeting last night. I was hoping to get final approval, and while we made MUCH headway and got many verbal "votes of confidence" from most of the members of the board, they felt that the 55 years of experience in the field of HVAC did not qualify my exhaust specialist as an expert witness. He is not a Certified PE however has done tens of thousands of design and installation projects including the Hess building and mega mall aplications. So one of the board members suggested that they use the monies that we deposited in escrow to present our menu and exhaust equipment proposal to an outside 3rd party expert that they would get and return with a report. We will meet again to discuss only nthe report and not hear or review ANY of the previous testimony. The opposing local reidences will have an opportunity to address the report as well. This next thing really burns me up. When the town sat down to create their yearly calendar of meetings, they chose to hold the October meeting on Yom Kippur. My partner, myself and my attorney are Jewish so we are unable to attend. I'm not happy about this. This means now that we are delayed untill the November meeting. What I am going to do with myself for 2 months I haven't figured out yet. Florida is sounding pretty nice, but I suppose I should look for another location while we wait. Who knows, the just and perfect location may be right around the next corner.

Eric

[Rebecca263]

We're so sad to hear that your opening has been delayed! We'll be watching your progress, hungrily! BTW, anything in the way of a corndog happening?