Miniskirted Vendor Has Great Relish for Business
Lisa J. Kelly has turned more than a few heads at the Van Nuys Civic Center during the last week.
A male competitor claims that her miniskirts are unfair competition in the dog-eat-dog world of fast-food stands, and some attorneys may be tempted to put away their briefcases and don aprons.
The hot dog business “must not be too bad,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert L. Cohen remarked recently after surveying Kelly’s mobile hot dog stand, incongruously hitched to her powder-blue Mercedes Benz 450 SL.
In an interview Tuesday, however, the 30-year-old, blonde weiner-roaster confessed that the Mercedes predates the hot dog business, which she started one week ago today outside the Van Nuys police station and Superior Court.
Kelly, a native New Yorker, estimates that she serves 25 to 30 kosher dogs each day to accused criminals, judges, police officers and firefighters.
‘Shoulder to Cry On’
“People come to the courthouse for a specific reason,” she said. “They’re either paying a parking ticket or getting sued or divorced. I listen to their problems. I’m a shoulder to cry on.
“I wave to the prisoners in the bus on their way to jail. I figure I’ve served some of them their last meal before they go to the Big House.”
Kelly joins two other hot-cart vendors, both men, who have staked out turf near the government center, hoping to entice office workers with the aroma of a mid-morning Danish or a noontime dog.
“In New York, there’s a hot dog cart on every corner,” Kelly said. “It’s not a novelty there.
“I grew up around these carts. I love hot dogs.”
Henry Sadeghi, who operates a cart a few hundred feet from Kelly, shook his head in frustration Tuesday as a steady stream of customers bought sodas, chips, hot dogs and sandwiches from Kelly, who was clad in a halter top and tennis skirt.
“The competition is very bad,” said Sadeghi, who has been in business a year. “She wears those miniskirts. It’s very, very bad.”
No Apologies
But Kelly, whose Mercedes license plate reads “XXX Me” (for “Kiss Me,” she says), makes no apologies.
“The business comes to me because I am a woman,” Kelly said. “I try to wear perky little outfits. I have a New York personality. How many vendors do you know who get manicures and pedicures before they go to work?
“My mother can’t figure out her little ‘glamour-puss daughter,’ standing in the street, selling hot dogs.”
Kelly left New York nine years ago and spent three years in Chicago before moving to Sherman Oaks. She said she bought the Mercedes with money earned in her former career in real estate property management.
Although she made a good salary in that job, she says, the entrepreneur in her refused to die.
Business Decision
After thinking about it for “a total of two hours,” Kelly decided in June to venture into the male-dominated hot dog-vendor business. She estimates she spent $6,000 to $7,000 to equip and supply her butane cart and obtain city licensing and county health permits.
Although she declined to disclose her income from the stand, Kelly said she hopes to take in between $150 and $200 a day when she becomes better established.
Her goal is to open an all-woman fleet of hot dog vendors and paint the carts hot pink. She said she is toying with the name “L.J.’s Passionate Dogs.”
She said her competitors have suggested that she cart her dogs elsewhere, but vowed: “I’m here to stay. I’m not going to be chased away.”
