The story behind Detroit’s semi-official food: Coney dogs

Excerpts from the article:

They began here, downtown Detroit, at American Coney Island.  The story begins in 1912 with the arrival in America of Constantine “Gust” Karos.

The article interviews Chris Karos, Gust’s great-grandson, who runs the place mainly when the grandson, his dad Danny, doesn’t. Karos explains that his family was sheepherders in Greece, and realized that it wasn’t going to get any better than that and that was unacceptable.

While Gust Karos was on the boat to Ellis Island, someone on the boat told him that if you want to be an American, when you get to New York go to Coney Island and eat a hot dog. That is what American people do.

During his visit to Coney Island, where he ate a hot dog for the first time, people were telling him to go to Detroit where Henry Ford is paying $5 a day to build cars.

Once in Detroit, he saves enough money from sweeping floors at a store to buy a popcorn cart.  He pushes the cart around for a couple of years, until he saves enough to buy a downtown storefront – where he cleans hats an shines shoes, but gets undercut by street kids shining shoes for cheaper.

Then it dawned on him, when he was in New York there was this Coney Island, a gorgeous amusement park, and there’s nothing like that here.  So the American Hat Cleaning Co. became American Coney Island, with flashing lights on the windows.

In New York, hot dogs were served with mustard and sauerkraut, but sauerkraut was a relative luxury in Detroit at the time.  So he used mustard and chopped onions. Then one day a customer asked him to put chili on it, and it soon became the talk of the town.  That’s how it was born:  chili, mustard, and onions.

The Coney Dog. Since 1917.

To view full article go to:  Orlando Sentinel