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Dig Dem Dogs
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A popular hot dog joint rises from ruin.
In the first weeks after it opened in January, Amazing Hot Dog in Verona was, well, hot. Customers lined up for executive chef Eric Eisenbud’s flash-fried, all-beef dogs, including the bacon-wrapped Amazing and the Jersey Breakfast, served on a bed of fried egg and melted American cheese. Factor in the hand-cut Belgian fries with chipotle dipping sauce and fresh limeade, and the skinny storefront in a nondescript strip mall was positively pulsating.
But in the wee hours of February 24, a smoky fire shut down Amazing Hot Dog (fortunately, no one was hurt). “In a lot of ways it was a blessing in disguise,” Eisenbud says. How’s that? “You don’t often get a chance to stop, figure out what you’re doing, and then do it again.”
A graduate of the School of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University, Eisenbud opened Amazing Hot Dog with a business partner, Matthew Applebaum. Going back to the drawing board after the fire, they made a raft of changes—some aesthetic, some procedural—before reopening May 1. The bottom line: “We’ll be able to bag take-out orders faster,” Eisenbud says. “When we were in this state last time, it was a big unknown how it would go. Now we know people like the food and the concept, and we can train people so we don’t have to rely on Matt and I doing everything.” These days the partners are even scouting a site for a second Amazing Hot Dog.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the food—the dogs cost from $3 to $5.75—although the menu does have one significant addition: a hot dog slathered with hot relish and spicy sambal sauce made from chipotle peppers, brown sugar, and sun-dried tomatoes. “It’s our way of saying, ‘Here’s the fire,’” Eisenbud says.
It’s called, appropriately, the Phoenix Dog.
