Hot Dog Charlie's - 150 Columbia Turnpike, Rensselaer, NY 12144
Hot Dog Charlie's Facebook Page
On the outside, this place isn't much to look at...
(Photo credit: Hot Dog Charlie's)
Just a lonely little location inside a mini-mini shopping center with just a Subway restaurant and a Chinese take-out place keeping it company. Not the best looking location on the outside, but you aren't supposed to judge a book by the cover. On the inside, they're whipping up some amazing tasting little hot dogs, hence their namesake.
Hot Dog Charlie's got its start in 1922 when the first location was opened in Troy, New York by Greek immigrant Strates Fentekes under the name New Way Lunch. People began calling him Charlie, so the name stuck. People would come to order their Charlie's mini hot dogs (which at the time were sold for a bargain 5 cents each), loaded up with anything from ketchup, mustard, kraut, onions, relish and Charlie's legendary secret chili meat sauce recipe. In the old days, Strates would line up a dozen minis on the length of his arm and load them up with their toppings, creating the "hairy arm" technique that few have been able to duplicate.
Charlie's seems to be the earliest known restaurant to serve these mini hot dogs, which is one reason they've managed to stay around for as long as they have. The brand of hot dogs they use currently is Sabrett's (although they had recently tried using Hembold's for just their mini's recently, which did not go over well, which caused them to switch back to Sabrett's - thank God, I like the full length hot dogs they serve, too, but it's just not the same thing).
A size comparison of a mini verses a regular size hot dog from here:
(Photo credit: Hot Dog Charlie's)
How would you get your hot dogs? Tom likes his with just the sauce (the regular, not the hot), and ketchup. Crissy, who has an intolerance to onions, which are one of the ingredients of the sauce, prefers them with just mustard and ketchup. You, however, can get them with any combination of their toppings (ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, sauerkraut or their chili meat sauce) to your own liking.
How that little grill in the back can cook so many great tasting hot dogs, along with other foods at the same time, is pretty amazing. Wait, they have other foods besides hot dogs? Yes. Our friend George loves their cheeseburgers, and all of us go wild for their curly fries (which they refer to as twister fries), which are better than pretty much anywhere else.
On a recent visit, Tom got his mini's while Crissy got two regulars, and we each ordered the twister fries. We were so excited to enjoy our meal, we dug right in and Tom had one mini completely gone before realizing he hadn't yet snapped a picture of his delicious lunch, which is why you see three mini's on the plate above, instead of four, Tom's usual.
As for some more of the other foods they serve, their fish fry is known to be one of the best in the Capital region. I also enjoy their clam roll, and the popcorn chicken is pretty good as well.... but the real reason for coming here is the hot dogs, the rest of these foods are for when you bring your whole family and some of them are less interested in hot dogs (hard to imagine, I know).
They also have some pretty good milkshakes which are great all year round, but especially in the summer time.
Today, Hot Dog Charlie's is run by Chuck Fentekes (the third generation in the family to run the restaurant), and Florence Dimitiadis. Aside from this location in Rensselaer, they have three other locations in Clifton Park, Cohoes and Latham, New York. This one is by far the best location, though.
The famous chili sauce they put on top of their hot dogs can be found in local area supermarkets, can be purchased in any store location, or can even be ordered online from the company's main website. I might have to do that myself sometime when I'm unable to get to New York to get some hot dogs. The local brand we have in Erie is Smith's and while those are decent dogs, they don't compare to these, and the sauce wouldn't taste the same on them.
It's time for us to be hitting the road again. We'll check in again soon with our next review. If you have something to say about this restaurant, leave us a comment on this post. If there's a restaurant in your local area (whether or not it is local to us) that you'd like us to check out for a possible review on our blog, let us know by messaging us on our Facebook Page. If you have your own pictures or reviews to add to our blog on any of our reviews (or if you just want to add one of your own to our blog), drop us a line because we would love to add further reviews for this business as well as other restaurants to our blog.
Until the next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.
For Diehls On The Road, this is Tom Diehl, signing off....
