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.