The Baylor Larit - 10/2/03 |
New
York-Style hot dogs in Waco. By Lauren Caldwell “Some days I don’t sit down, and some days all I do is sit” Loyd says smiling as he waves to a honking car on the service road. Loyd, a 33-year-old Houston native, came to Waco 13 years ago and attended Texas State Technical College. He went into computer networking, worked for several companies in town but was laid off shortly after Sept. 11. He then got a job doing phone support for TiVo. At home one night Loyd’s hot dog inspiration came by way of the PBS show A Hot Dog Program, which spotlights all types of hot dog places around the country. “When you get done watching the program, you’re like, ‘Man, I want a hot dog, Where can I get one?’” Loyd said. “There’s no place in town, so you just end up making yourself a skinny, sorry microwave hot dog.” Loyd began to think seriously about opening his own hot dog stand but knew it not would be as long as he was working for TiVo. “As fate would have it, I got fired,” Loyd said “So I went home and told my wife, ’I’m going to open a hot dog stand.’” Over the following months, with his wife as condiment manager, Loyd made preparations to open his hot dog stand. He started searching online for a hot dog cart. Loyd and his wife received their tax return check and bought their cart with the money. The health department inspected the cart; Loyd took the health department’s food manager course and then found a small piece of land to rent. With 60 hot dogs loaded in his cart, Loyd opened American Island Hot Dogs on June 9. This summer students could see Loyd with one of his three daughters waving and serving hot dogs. Jeremy Stripling, a Nacogdoches junior, stopped to try one of Loyd’s hot dogs shortly after the stand opened. “At first when I pulled up, I wondered if he was meeting city standards,” Stripling said “That was my first question for George”
The hot dogs are $2.00 each, with unlimited toppings and tax included in the price.
Loyd brags of his quality, brand name toppings that include all the usuals and a Texas Sassy relish which he orders from
Austin. Loyd plans on continuing to keep his stand open 11a.m. to 6p.m. Monday through
Saturday year round. When a car pulls up, Loyd jogs over to his customer’s window and
takes their order, then bounces back to his cart and quickly assembles and neatly wraps
the hot dogs. With three fully-dressed hot dogs lined up he grins and points, “See,
now where else can you get a hot dog like that?” Lauren can be reached at Lauren_Caldwell@baylor.edu |