The Inflationary Hot Dog Story

1950

A True Story

Written 8/2015* 592 Words

By Howard Yasgar

When I was younger hotdogs were on every restaurant’s menu, just like grilled cheese sandwiches,

Then sometimes in the 1970’s, all of a sudden hotdogs just seemed to disappear off restaurant menus, and for about the next 25 to 40 years you could hardly find one on a restaurant menu. I assumed there was a good reason for this, I think it was inflation.

Because of the higher cost of doing because, no one could afford to sell such a cheap item as the hotdog. Restaurants needed to sell things that make a profit and selling hotdogs just wasn’t profitable.

Please don’t misunderstand me, you could always find hotdogs in the supermarket, and you could

make them at home, but for some reason they never taste the same.

Once I started looking, I just couldn’t find hot dogs in any restaurants.

After all, how much money can you make on a hot dog. Even if a restaurant charged $2.00 for a hotdog and they made $1.50 profit, what can you do with $1.50 profit, and making that $1.50 didn’t include the restaurants cost of mustard and ketchup, Chopped onions, and washing the stained tablecloth.

Now I wondered, what made me ever think about writing about a hotdog in the first place. Well, it was because the other day I did see one on a restaurant menu for $5.95, and I just read in January of 2016, that Burger King was putting them on the menu for $5.95 each.

I remembered back in 1950 when I was eleven years old, my dad took me to a local White Castle restaurant, it was located on Crown Street in Downtown New Haven Connecticut.

I always remember that restaurant because the local street people always went there for a cup of hot bean soup.

Well the evening my father took me there, there were several local homeless people sitting at the counter with their cup of soup. My dad found us seats at the end of the counter and he ordered us two of the most delicious hot dogs I had ever tasted. They were boiled New Haven hotdogs on a steamed bun with beef chili sauce poured over it, and mustard and chopped white onions on top. (I understand that you can still buy them that way in Detroit). We sat at that White Castle counter, savoring our dogs with the beef chili sauce running down our chins.

That was until the waiter brought the bill to my father. I could see the expression on his face change as he studied it. Then he said, “30 cents, how the hell do they get the nerve to charge me .30 cents apiece for a hot dog. He turned around in his seat and pointed out the front plate glass window and said, “Do you see that street corner over there, well when I was your age, I sold newspapers right there, on that very corner, and I came here every night for a hotdog, and the hotdog only cost 5 cents each.

Well if my dad were still around, and he was upset with the hotdog price of .30 cents back in 1950, I would tell him that was inflation even back then.

What would my dad say now if he saw a hotdog at $5.95?