If there is only one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I am a fan of and a bit of a connoisseur of sandwiches. Every week, more or less for the past decade, presents me with the existential dilemma of whether I want to subject myself to the constant debasement that comes with being a creative at an advertising agency—but it’s one of the few remaining gigs that will pay be a decent salary to write and dick around. But given my own deep-seated sense of millennial cringe, I am inclined to think I deserve more, to aspire to something greater. And given the brisk and bewildering sense of direction this economy is moving in, maybe it’s time for a much belated career pivot.
I am happy to unpack the inspiration and the nuts-and-bolts details of my new business venture. Gentrified millennial burger shacks are undergoing a resurgence on TikTok, but I want to be different. I’m just a man with a dream. My foolproof idea involves opening a new grub spot in the heart of Brooklyn, an up-and-coming neighborhood like Williamsburg or Bushwick. It’ll be called something like Lizzie’s Eaterie, and instead of seafood towers and champagne, we will be an establishment of inclusivity by offering hot dog towers and the champagne of beer. The menu will list the hot dogs as steamed ham sandwiches—and this is bound to start some char-broiled discourse amongst all the foodie influencers.
We will offer the finest style of hot dogs to represent the delicacies of their most prominent regions. The Chicago dog will be made of diced heirloom farmers market tomatoes, red onion pickled in jalapeño pepper brine, cucumber spears imported directly from China, and ethically sourced celery salt. We’ll cover hot dogs from regions that people have never heard of, exotic places like Idaho. All our hot dogs are made from a blend of A5 Wagyu, free-range veal, and lean pork belly. The buns will range from freshly baked baguettes to butter-toasted brioche to poppy seeds harvested directly by Tibetan monks. Each hot dog tower will contain a half-dozen wieners, and it will cost an accessible 10,000 cents—yes, our menu will be quirky and price everything in cents. And every individual item will be printed out in its own font. Also, we will only use QR code menus to save on overhead costs.
The hot dog tower will not automatically come with fries. Our fries are not just regular fries—they are matchstick potatoes. They will come in a variety of options: Truffle-bathed or the parmesan garlic sweet potato variety, and they will be packaged in little paper cones on the top rung of the tower, and each serving will cost an extra 1,500 cents. Any of the styles of hot dogs that include cheese will not use the standard ballpark plastic garbage, because we are on a mission to elevate the hot dog experience. The choice of cheese will include provolone, pepperjack, American, or our house southwest-style Wisconsin melted queso dusted with chili flakes and smoked paprika for a small 400-cent surcharge.
And we will not allow any of our customers to order a regular hot dog with a Heinz packet. We will provide a special house sauce made from farm-fresh applewood-smoked ketchup, blasted with free-range garlic aioli, and seasoned with a dash of locally-sourced pickle juice for a little extra kick.
Our first weekly special will be a bulgogi wiener with guac’ed sweet potato matchstick potatoes paired with the local glass bottle of cane sugar cola, and it will be the best 8,600 cents anyone will ever spend.
A cup of Folgers coffee will be 529 cents, and will be served in a Mason jar piping hot.
We will have a minimum of 15 IPAs on tap, and everything will be artisanal and farm-to-table. The server will have a pig butchery tattoo, and all our dogologists will be adorned in leather aprons. The dining area will have a faux industrial vibe with exposed brick walls and faux filament bulbs attached to plumbing pipes above the bar. We’ll play all the hits from the Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, and my personal favorite, fun.
Together, we will change the world. Bushwick and all the soon-to-be displaced locals won’t know what hit them.
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Author: Sam Colt
Karen O’Blivious – Senior political correspondent who insists she’s neutral but only interviews people who agree with her.