Other titles I considered included:
Do Call It A Comeback
You've Got To Try RReeaall Fuckin' Hard To Screw Up A Hotdog
But my better sense prevailed and I just called it what it is: Walkin' Dog has re-opened. That's kind of a big deal for two very important reasons, the first being that it was the last lunch spot in downtown Minneapolis where you could get lunch for less than ten dollars. Like a substantial lunch. Two dogs and a drink for less than ten beans? Shit, other downtown joints charge you sixteen seventeen eighteen dollars for a fucking salad. Walkin' Dog did BOGOs on Mondays and Fridays and BOG-one-half-off (BOGOHO?) on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I forget what the Wednesday deal was.
I'm being told it was creepy and kooky.
But, yeah, without Arby's around, it was between Walkin' Dog and Dagwood's for the cheapest lunches downtown and, you know what? That's actually important to have. Like really important. Not everybody downtown is a white collar worker who can afford the sixteen seventeen eighteen dollar salad wrap. There are cleaners and cashiers and other people who'd be considered blue collar who could use a nice bit of a lunch they didn't brown bag once in a while.
The second reason Walkin' Dog reopening is important is because, well, Minneapolis is not a hotdog town, not like Chicago or Detroit or New York. Sure we have the Wienery and Uncle Franky's* but I don't have time in the middle of the workday to bust over to West Bank or NorthEast to get my hotdog fix and, that last bit aside, wouldn't it be nicer if we did have more dedicated hotdog joints in Minneapolis?
Anyway, I read last night that Walkin' Dog, who, I swear to god, ho, I thought was dead and never coming back, was back and I made it a point to today to saunter my sexy black Irish ass over there to investigate.
Well, the first thing I noticed was that the new Walkin' Dog... Um... Well, hey, Walkin' Dog was always a one-man operation and when Dave did have somebody working for him, I assumed it was like a nephew or a niece or somebody. I don't know. I don't ask questions. What I'm getting at, though, is that the actual geographic footprint of the original Walkin' Dog was pretty huge. I understand that contradicts more popular sentiments, one being that it was the size of a postage stamp, but big homie really did have a long counter for just serving up dogs in a one-man operation. This iteration of Walkin' Dog seemed to be more appropriately sized. It was about half the length.
And nearly double the price.
That's right. It appeared that somebody had decided to issue a capital eff Fuck capital why You to working stiffs and charge people six honest goddamned beans for a fucking hotdog with no BOGO deals.
Like... What?
Also, there were double the staff there, no Dave in sight as he sold the rights to the place or however that works, and now I'm stuck talking to a confused young man on a register who - I swear, right hand on my Gang of Four's Entertainment! LP - I had to repeat myself to when ordering thusly:
Charlie: "Yeah, uh, just a Vienna Beef. Catsup, mustard, onion."Confused Young Man (let's call him Cody): "Uh, Vienna beef... What would you like on it?"Charlie: "Just catsup, mustard, onion."Cody (clicking things into a register, which Dave never had to do): "Catsup... mustard... And what was the last thing you said?"Charlie: "Onion."Cody: "Oh, yeah, onion."
Dude, are you fucking high? At eleven am on a Friday downtown?
Thankfully, he didn't touch my food. My food was handled by a lovely young woman in - check the fuck out of this shit out - chef's whites. She asked me if I had any weekend plans. Small talk while she dressed my dog.
Anyway, I thanked her, started walking back to the office, and bit into my hotdog and - Hot rats! - the bun was bone cold. The hotdog was cooked. The condiments were at, um, the temperature that's appropriate for condiments, I guess, but the bun was fucking frigid. This was a six dollar hotdog. I expected at least a room temperature bun.
Dude, six dollars for a fucking hotdog? I mean, I'm used to those shenanigans from the Wienery but then the Wienery doesn't serve cold buns and - you know? I'm just complaining right now. I don't really like this side of myself. Just nitpicking over the temperature of my bun after the price of the hotdog goes up fifty percent. And no BOGOs. Or BOGOHOs. That's essentially more than doubling the goddamned price tag.
(OK, you can say BOGOHO but you have to credit me every time you do.)
I didn't even look at the rest of Walkin' Dog's menu for drinks and such but if you want two hotdogs, that's twelve beans before tax - "Used to be four twenty five!!!" yells someone from the back - quick and dirty math to calculate the tax (something like nine percent) in my head puts it at the thirteen dollar mark. No chips, no drink, just two hotdogs for thirteen beans. Why would you do that to yourself? I mean, hey, Dagwood's, charging eight dollars a hoagie - a forearm-sized hoagie with chips, mind you - is still the cheapest lunch downtown if you're talking about value per dollar.
I won't tell you to not check it out but... I don't know, dude. I guess I just have to get used to a world where a four twenty five hotdog BOGO no longer exists.
This is the part where I would normally embed a YouTube video of Queen doing "Who Wants To Live Forever" from the Highlander soundtrack but, for real, that's a little over the top, don't you think?
* I r e f u s e to recognize Tilt - now called Litt - as they charged $9 for a plain dog and there was like a 25¢ upcharge for catsup. I can only imagine what kind of cockamamie bollocks they charge now.
Comments
Post a Comment