Should you fix their hot dog or let them add the condiments themselves? In this short video I'll give you the pros and cons and tell you when exactly to let the customers do it themselves.

Hey, I wanna talk about hot dogs and (you know) the discussion between all beef or “Ben should I go with the chicken pecker dogs”…

And it all comes down to personal preference, that’s it.

But not your personal preference tough, it has nothing to do with your personal preference.

You want to cater to the people that are in your area, and I don't mean catering on a cart, I'm talking about serving to the people in your area.

If the demographics of people in your area love some potted meat, looove a great hot dog but don't care what brand it is, then by all means get it.

Get a regular standard Oscar Mayer’s, a standard Nathan’s… get something!

Just a basic hot dog and then you can jack up the water like I talk about on the blog and make a better dirty water.

But you can also go with quality condiments, a better bun, a softer bun. That’s where you need to spend your time.

 But then I’ve got vendors that go…

“But Ben, all beef hot dogs are the thing!”

Now, I don’t know if they brought that idea for themselves and then portrayed that idea to their crowd.

– “we only serve all beef.”

Because it was kind of a gimmick anyway how this “all beef” thing started, cuz you didn't hear about it.

I mean, I didn't ever hear about “all beef” hot dogs till I got way over in life.

It's in the last 10 or 12 years maybe that all beef became a thing and it was to counter the negativity about hot dogs.

People were like “well you don't know what's in them”…

… you don't know what's in your freaking hamburger that's all beef. All beef means it came from a cow, it doesn't mean what part of the cow…

… you might be getting cow butthole. So it's just all beef right?

Who knows what “all beef” hot dog is?

The original idea was to counter the negativity of health conscious consumers who said oh my gosh I can't have gluten anymore, I can’t this, I can’t that and this is bad for you, and this causes cancer and all that stuff we hear…

… and society rolls along with and then the manufacturers of hot dogs go…

“Oh,we got to come out with something… we’ll do all beef.”

And then they marketed all beef…

“our dogs are all beef!”

So is a McDonald's burger, that will last on a shell for 85 years or whatever it is.

Why?

What’s the part of a cow that has an 85 year life expectancy? Probably somewhere near the butthole.

My point is, don't fret over it!

Serve to your crowd and if you need to serve both, serve both. We've got vendors that serve a quarter pound “all beef” cause that sounds good right, and healthy!

And if we got vendors that serve along with that chicken peckers and beat dogs.

And all I’m talking about  is a chicken and pork hot dog, a typical hot dog.

Which is my family’s favorite!

My wife won’t eat an all beef, even though she's tried a million of them. I’ve talked her in to try to buy it.

Please try this hot dog, is Kobe beef, it's $85 a pound and she'll be like… daahh.

Cause all beef has a different texture, it's a little more chewy.

It doesn't mean there's not delicious ones cuz I have found a lot that I love, but that doesn’t mean I need to serve it.

As a wise hot dog vendor, I need to serve what my crowd likes. If you set up one day and it's just chicken and pork hot dogs and your customers go like… 

“You don't have all beef?” And every day it's more customers wanting all beef…

… by all means, add “all beef”!

But don't think you got to join the all beef fan club because other vendors have.

I did it too!

I got on that bandwagon, oh “all beef”…

“we got the healthy hot dogs her“

“how much chili and sauerkraut and sour cream and everything else you want on this hot dog?”

“Oh, want some cream cheese? We got that too with Coca-Cola onions”

… cuz they're by no coax healthy…right? And then you put cream cheese on it… it only gets better! It’s more healthy… more goodder, better! :):)

So my point is, don't worry about that stuff, and go and serve your crown and ignore all this other white noise, put blinders on like horses in races, stay focus on the needs of your customers and you'll be successful.

If the needs are kind of mixed in some areas, like in my area where I can get away with all beef and regular hot dogs and I can get away with both and nobody cares, then you can do both.

And if you need to do both so that you can advertise both, then do both.

But I wouldn't go,

“now I got 18 different all beef dogs and 16 different types of chicken pecker and beat dogs”

… no you don’t. Okay?

Cause it’s all probably the butthole out of whatever animal. It's just ground up stuff from a cow, and ground up stuff from chicken and pigs.

So, unless you go get the $65 a pound Kobe beef premium that was selected from the third rib and his mama had a good life and… you know, all this story behind this perfect piece of meat, then maybe…

…but I've tried some of these premiums, I’ve had some manufacturers send me some premium hot dogs, ones that no vendor really is going to serve consistently because it's too expensive.

And I'm trying them and then like okay… this basically taste like a decent steak, but different texture and not a hot dog…

… so basically it's around something like steak and you know we joke about tube stakes, you know hot dogs being tube steaks.

Again, my point is…

Grab your hot dog cart, serve to your crowd, don't get it caught up in the beef or chicken pecker and beat dogs and all that stuff.

Just don't worry about it, serve what your crowd likes and you will be successful. Serve the food they want.

If it's the cheaper hot dogs great!

Spend your money and your time on your condiments, your appearance and your setup and you'll do great, okay?

So there's that!