Damn Fine Hot Dogs

So, you have a dream, and it’s not going well.  You not only feel like you’re up that special creek without a paddle, there’s a hole in the boat.  And you can’t swim, and you just saw an alligator.  And you’re having chest pain!  What do you do?

Well, if you’re in the little mountain town of Prescott, Arizona, and your dream is to have your own small restaurant, maybe you try Kickstarter.  You’re not being greedy — you just need $15,000.  That’s not that much, is it?  Just a few pledges.  Instead, you got zero pledges.  Then, the city starts giving you grief, zoning you as a church, delaying permits.  You have put everything you have into this dream.  You’ve got the place, the know-how, a great idea, people hired, and you’re just waiting on the city.  You’re paying electricity and water and rent and bringing in no income.  So you sell your car, and some other stuff.  Through stubbornness, desperation, faith in your dream, and no small amount of true grit, you make it happen.  All because you believed in your dream. What do you do next?

You open up, and start making hot dogs from scratch. Curing your own bacon. Making your own mustard — three kinds.  Making your own buns, and incredibly good cookies.  And South Carolina mustard-based, pulled pork barbecue!  Then, in your first days of business, you charge a dollar extra for your cookies, and you don’t take a cent of it — that money goes into a jar for Wounded Warriors, because you’re that kind of person.  Three people, actually.

I am here to tell you that the dream was worth believing in.  And the potato salad not only has fresh dill, it has a lot of their home-cured bacon.  The Chicago dog is so authentic, you can almost hear Harry Caray singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  God rest his soul.

The restaurant is named “Nastee Dogs,” and it’s at 232 S. Montezuma Street, a block off the downtown square.  The only thing I’d change about this place is the name.  It should be “Damn Fine Hot Dogs.”

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem for his son called “If.”  This is part of it:  “IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…

Yours is the Earth, and everything that’s in it.”

Godspeed, Nastee Dogs.

This post and all blog content Ⓒ Copyright Janet Farrar Worthington.