Haute Dog! Snackers Savor the Wurst Selection

Hot dogs are a guilty pleasure for Brooks Kindel. As the khaki-suited executive joined the lunchtime crowd at the Kozy Kart hot dog stand in the Century City Shopping Center, he resembled a child on Christmas morning.

“I only allow myself this indulgence once in a while,” said Kindel, 35, grinning as he contemplated the steaming red frank on a hot bun. “And I always come to this stand. They smell so good that I can’t resist.”

Thanks to Kindel and other enthusiasts, the much-maligned frank is enjoying a surprising resurgence around Los Angeles these days. Health food advocates may not relish the thought, but growing numbers of people are throwing culinary caution to the wind by embracing one of the world’s most notorious junk foods.

Gourmet Hot Dogs

Traditional and gourmet dogs, including some made of such exotic ingredients as duck, also are winning fans in fitness-conscious communities from Malibu to Hollywood, giving new meaning to the term “dog days of summer.”

Indeed, the ball park fare was served at a posh Century City fund-raiser for Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) not long ago.

The colorful hot dog carts that have occupied Eastern and Midwestern street corners for decades are now laying claim to the palm-lined streets of some of the area’s wealthiest communities. In an interesting melding of cultures, one cart that has been seen in the fashionable Melrose District is pulled by a gleaming BMW.

Health deparment officials report there are about 200 licensed hot dog carts scattered across the county. Frankfurter manufacturers say Los Angeles, once regarded as a wiener wasteland, has become one of their major growth areas.

“We didn’t even have a meaningful presence in Los Angeles until six or seven years ago,” said Walt Stugis, director of marketing for the New York-based Hebrew National Kosher Foods. “Now it’s our fastest growing market. Sales have been increasing by 40% to 80% each year for the past four years.”

Upscale Appeal

Stugis said hot dogs made of high-quality ingredients appeal to “upscale Los Angeles consumers.” Incredibly, he predicts that Southern California will surpass the Greater New York area, where 20 million Hebrew National hot dogs were sold last year, as the company’s No. 1 market by summer’s end.

Others tell similar tales. Jim Eisenberg, chairman of the Chicago-based Vienna Sausage Manufacturing Co., said his hot dogs are available at 100 to 150 frank stands around Los Angeles, contrasted with 15 or 20 five years ago.

Vienna, an all-beef dog that is sold commercially and is not available in grocery stores, cracked the Los Angeles market with an ambitious public relations campaign aimed at the Westside and the San Fernando Valley. “It isn’t just a matter of selling someone a hot dog. You have to sell them the concept,” Eisenberg noted.

John McMillin, a food industry analyst for Prudential-Bache Securities, said fast-moving Angelenos are well-suited to the hot dog, despite their legendary fussiness about food.

“In this day and age, anything that can be eaten with one hand, on the run, will do well,” McMillin said. “And clearly, hot dogs are grazing foods. . . . The level of demand has been pretty high.”

‘Good and Inexpensive’

With their fashionable clothing and their trim physiques, a lot of people seen at hot dog stands look like they must have taken a wrong turn on the way to the sushi bar. They don’t seem concerned that the average wiener contains nearly 300 calories, and that total can double by the time chili and other toppings are added. But devotees are extremely frank in their praise.

Claudia Montero likes hot dogs because “they’re good and inexpensive,” with the average dog costing $1.50 to $2.50. Larry Gast, a salesman who occasionally eats franks for lunch, explained, “I don’t know if they’re that good for you, but they sure are convenient.” Larry Guerra said hot dogs fit his life style. “I’m a carpenter, so I like junk food,” he said. Added J. R. Larson, his friend: “As long as you don’t know what’s in them, you’re OK.”

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council in Oakbrook, Ill., reports that New York and Chicago still reign as the frankfurter capitals of the world, though they do not keep precise statistics on regional or national sales. But Los Angeles may soon become known as the haute dog capital, as manufacturers entice local taste buds with everything from chicken and turkey dogs to veal and duck.

“Your part of the country is kind of ripe for the whole gourmet hot dog thing,” said Fran Altman, the hot dog and sausage council spokeswoman.

Wally’s Liquor Store in Westwood, which is well known for its vast selection of wines and single-malt scotches, offers something known as a “Wally Dog,” a concoction created by the store’s owner, who won’t disclose its contents.

Gourmet Sausage Empire

In Venice, Jordan Monkarsh has built a gourmet sausage empire out of a small hot dog and sausage stand on Ocean Front Walk. Billing himself as “Jody Maroni the Sausage King,” Monkarsh first lured people in with free samples.

Today, the Venice stand is thriving (he expects to sell about 800 sausages and hot dogs on July 4 weekend), and Monkarsh has diversified. He supplies his nitrite- and preservative-free sausages to more than 15 restaurants and recently received federal government approval to market his products in grocery stores. Among those slated for the shelves are Bombay Curried Sausage with Monoucka Raisins, Chicken and Duck Kishka and Yucatan Chicken and Duck Sausage.

“The whole phenomenon has caught on,” Monkarsh said. “In the past, I would always see sausages and peppers in New York and Boston . . . but never here until now.”

Two Los Angeles-based gourmet hot dog companies with national franchise aspirations also have opened recently. The Wurst, with stores in Westwood Village, the Melrose District and New York City, offers such sandwiches as the “Quackwurst” (duck, chicken and cilantro), the “Bockwurst” (veal with parsley) and the “Wurst Link” (beef with Cajun spices).

“There is a very discriminating palate . . . and a tremendous amount of health consciousness,” Bob Gura, a partner in the business, said of the local customers. “With that in mind, we developed a vegetarian link with nuts, seeds and grains. We also have turkey sausage.”

‘All-American Dog’

The Wurst also serves a basic all-beef wiener called the “All-American Dog.” Gura concedes it accounts for a quarter of all sales.

At Muster’s Hofbrau in Century City, the accent is more Germanic. With a menu that includes knackwurst, bratwurst and sauerkraut, the owners hope to attract office workers, shoppers and moviegoers at the renovated mall.

Loren Singer is one of the partners in Muster’s. Another is actor Wayne Rogers. Singer said that hot dogs got a bad rap in the past because there were so many bad ones.

Of course, even when you offer “quality hot dogs,” he said “some people will ask what’s in them, but not too many.”

Most consumers must go on faith because all hot dog peddlers claim their products are made of only the finest ingredients. The same disclaimers are issued at practically every stand.

“We use all-beef hot dogs,” said the Kozy Kart’s George Kavalis. “That’s our secret.”

“It’s very hard to find a good hot dog,” said Stan (Rocky) Lane, owner of Rock’s Famous Coney Island Hot Dog Stand in West Los Angeles. “That’s why we use 100% all-beef hot dogs.”

Widely Vilified for Years

Their defensiveness may be understandable, however, considering that the wiener has been widely vilified over the years for containing all sorts of animal parts (many of them have since been removed) and condemned by consumer advocates for their lack of nutritional value.

In 1980, someone even suggested that the poor frankfurter should be flattened out so it more closely resembled the more popular hamburger.

And in 1986, Consumer Reports magazine reported that none of the 63 brands it tested cut the mustard well enough to earn the magazine’s top rating, and only 10 made the second-best category. The study said hot dogs tend to be high in sodium, fat and water, and reported that consumers would have to buy $30.65 worth of one popular frankfurter to obtain one pound of protein.

“Hot dogs are mostly water and fat,” the magazine concluded in the 2-year-old study. “Descendants of sausage, they’re made of odds and ends of meat ground with water and spices, pumped into casings, cooked and cured.”

The new gourmet hot dog purveyors might challenge that definition. But the average Los Angeles consumer does not appear troubled by it.

Patriotic Appeal

The Hot Dog and Sausage Council reports that the average person eats 80 wieners a year, and another study showed 50 million dogs are consumed each year.

Mike Mikhail, an Egyptian immigrant who operates the Tasty Hasty hot dog cart in the Wilshire District and on Melrose Avenue, said the sale and consumption of hot dogs amounts to an act of patriotism.

When county health department officials charged that his food was not properly protected from contamination earlier this year, he accused them of persecuting a merchant who had cashed in his savings to purchase a $5,000 vending cart. And in leaflets that said, “Wake Up America!” he called on his customers to rise up in his defense.

“There’s a kind of mythology that goes along with the hot dog business,” Mikhail said as he stood on a Melrose street corner grilling onions. “The American people, they have pride in them. Italy has pizza. Japan has sushi. And we have the hot dog. It’s made here in America, and it’s good food.”

Not Dominated by Chains

A similar endorsement is offered by the proprietor of the recently opened Hot Dog USA on West Olympic Boulevard in Beverly Hills--Dolores Tsehanovsky, a Soviet immigrant. Linking the frank to the promise of America, she noted that while the hamburger field is dominated by huge international chains, the hot dog business is still open to regular people.

“People can feel the love that I put into my work,” she said.