Coney Island on the Great Lakes: The Story Behind Michigan’s Famous Hot Dogs
Coney Island may be in New York, but Coney Island hot dogs are a Michigan tradition! Learn about the dish and how it became a Wolverine classic.
In most states, if you say you’re going to Coney Island, people will assume you’re planning a trip to the historic amusement park in New York City. In Michigan, though, minds turn to something closer to hand: hot dogs! Specifically, Coney Island hot dogs, which, despite their name, don’t come from New York, and aren’t a brand of hot dog—they’re a way of preparing America’s most beloved sausage, which is heavy on toppings for a flavor bomb that runs serious risk of staining your clothes—but is so worth it.
There can be some argument about what, exactly, makes a proper Coney dog—and where you can find the best ones. But how did these rich, savory sausages become part of Michigan’s culinary legacy? Let’s grab some mustard and find out.
From Greece to Detroit, a chili-and-onion mystery
While everyone has heard jokes about “how the sausage gets made” and hot dogs being mystery meat, there’s no mystery behind the meat in a traditional, Michigan-style Coney dog. An all-beef, or blended pork-and-beef, hot dog is a crucial starting point for the dish, and beanless, all-beef chili is another crucial addition to the recipe. The rest is simple, with yellow mustard and finely chopped white onions rounding out the dish. However, there is a bit of a mystery around Coney dogs nonetheless, and that’s the mystery of where they came from.
While no one knows for sure who made the first Coney dog, how they came up with the recipe, or where this culinary “first” took place, food historians can make educated guesses. According to the Detroit Historical Society, the longest-standing story goes that the first person to cook a Coney dog was an immigrant from Greece, who may have encountered hot dogs at Coney Island, New York, while traveling to the Midwest, and decided to put their own spin on them. That may sound like a surprising thought, but the rich, all-meat chili that’s used to top a Coney dog has a similar spice pattern to traditional Greek meat dishes, as you can also see in the Cincinnati-style chili that was also developed by Greek Americans. That said, one of the first people to sell Coney dogs in Michigan, George Todoroff, wasn’t from Greece, but neighboring Macedonia, which has a similar culinary tradition.
While the very first Coney dog’s origins are lost to history, some of the earliest restaurants to sell them were located in Detroit—specifically in Greektown, which should perhaps not come as a surprise. Two century-old Coney dog stands, Lafayette and American, remain in the heart of Greektown, with one of them, American Coney Island, still owned by descendants of the Keros family, Greek Americans who opened both shops in the 1910s and 1920s. On the other hand, Coney Island in Kalamazoo has been continuously operating since 1915, making it the longest-running Coney dog shop in the Mitten.
Outside the mitten, the Coney Dog has made its mark
So, wherever they originated, if Coney dogs are a Michigan tradition, can you even find one on Coney Island? Well, maybe, but the odds are, it won’t be called that. While there are a few different names Coney dogs can go by, including chili dogs, Hungarian hot dogs (an Ohio variation which is typically served on rye bread), and Texas dogs. However, perhaps the most notable alternate name for a Coney dog is what it’s called in parts of New England and the northeastern United States, including some of New York, the state that’s home to Coney Island itself. In that part of the country, the decadent hot dog is referred to as “a Michigan.”
Get your hands on Coney Island hot dogs today
All this talk of Coney dogs making you hungry? That’s no surprise, and not a problem, as there are plenty of outlets in the Wolverine State to get your Coney dog fix. Detroit is the heartland of Coney dog country, and two of the most famous places to get one, Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island, as mentioned above, are located a stone’s throw from each other in the Motor City.
However, Detroit isn’t the only place in Michigan that takes Coney dogs seriously. In the western part of the Mitten, you can try a taste of history at Coney Island on Michigan Avenue, a Kalamazoo institution celebrating its 110th birthday in 2015, which offers takeaway Coney dogs or seating in its casual, retro environment. Meanwhile, in Flint, Coney dogs are topped with a chili variation that includes beef heart and sometimes kidneys, which is finely ground and cooked into the chili-style sauce. One of the best-known outlets for Flint-style Coney dogs is Starlite Coney Island, an old-school diner in Burton, northeast of Flint proper, or you can get your Flint Coneys to go at the Coney Grill, a drive-thru only stand famous for its Flint-style Coneys, which it’s been serving up since the late 1980s.
On the other hand, perhaps you’d like to whip up a batch for yourself? While most of the elements that make up a Coney dog are easy to purchase and assemble, the chili or sauce can be tricky to get just right, whether you prefer Flint-style or Detroit-style. Once you’ve nailed that, the rest is just a matter of chopping onions, grilling your favorite brand of hot dog, and grabbing a bottle of bright-yellow mustard.
Luckily, there are recipes online for making your own Coney sauce, or you can order it from outlets throughout Michigan that deliver directly to you so you can enjoy Coney dogs in your own kitchen. One of the places you can buy Coney sauce online, Todoroff’s Fine Foods, is the retail outlet descended from Todoroff’s, the Jackson-based Coney dog outlet, which opened in 1914 and is considered the first Coney dog stand in Michigan. However, you can also buy canned Coney sauce, or even Coney-style hot sauce to add to your own ground beef for a compromise between store-bought and homemade.
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