Celebrated Piece of Chicago Adds Spice to Newsy Hot Dog Stand

Chicago is Norm Rubin’s kind of town.

But he can’t be there all the time, so the Santa Monica real estate developer brought a little piece of the Windy City to the City of Angels. He bought a dismantled 38-foot section of Chicago’s famous elevated railway line and used it to construct a Chicago-style hot dog stand in Sherman Oaks.

“This is a four-year dream come true,” Rubin, 60, said Saturday as he relaxed on the patio under the railway tracks in front of his restaurant, Rubin’s Red Hot, scheduled to open Tuesday. “Some people at my age buy yachts; I wanted to buy a hot dog stand.”

Rubin’s vision on Ventura Boulevard across from the Sherman Oaks Galleria is far more than just a bare-bones corner hot dog stand. It is a whimsical building that cost $750,000 to construct and is a Hollywood version of the atmosphere that Rubin, a former Universal Studios vice president, remembers from his childhood in suburban Chicago.

As a boy, Rubin said, he used to buy a Pepsi for a nickel in the corner drugstore and read comic books in the aisles until the druggist kicked him out. “Children here today don’t have any place to go to have a hot dog and buy a newspaper,” Rubin said. “I wanted to marry a hot dog stand with a newsstand.”

Kiosk From Paris

His newsstand is a green newspaper kiosk imported from Paris at a cost of $20,000. Rubin said the cylindrical structure is reminiscent of the days that he was stationed in Paris with the military. The kiosk sits on the patio and will offer newspapers and magazines so patrons can eat, drink and read, he said.

As well as kosher hot dogs shipped from Chicago, the restaurant will serve chicken and fish salads and sandwiches.

Once Rubin decided three years ago to create his ideal hot dog stand, he wanted to develop a unique logo. That’s when a relative who still lives in Chicago told him that a three-block section of the elevated railway at the end of the Jackson Park line was slated for demolition. Rubin decided to buy a piece of the El.

“McDonald’s has the golden arches--we wanted something that would make a lot of noise,” he said.

Rubin paid $75,000 to buy the dismantled segment of the train track, ship it to California and put it together again. The structure, which is an integral part of the restaurant’s architecture, had to be reinforced so that it would comply with building codes.

Rubin’s son, Samuel, 25, who helped his father develop the restaurant, said buying the El segment wasn’t that expensive--it was sold at the going rate for scrap metal. Most of the cost was for shipping and rebuilding the structure, he said.

All did not go smoothly with the transaction, however. The portion of the track that Rubin initially purchased was accidentally melted down in Illinois. To prevent similar mishaps, Rubin and his son flew to Chicago and watched the workers while they dismantled the length of track now in front of the restaurant. They kept their eye on the pieces until they were safely on the train to California.

Rubin, who has his own real estate development firm, said he does not plan to play a large role in the restaurant’s day-to-day operations. He said his primary goal in launching the project is to have fun and create a place where he can relax and enjoy the company of friends.

But construction costs were three times what he had expected, he said, so he hopes the venture will make some money.

“Perhaps eventually I will go and buy that yacht after all,” he said.