Quick Take
The owners of River Dogs of Boulder Creek had to attend Vienna Beef's Hot Dog University before the famed Chicago company would allow them to sell its all-beef hot dogs. But it was worth it, say Paul Faraone and Chris McCann, who now sell the only "real deal" Chicago dog in Central California. Last week, River Dogs established a satellite location for the summer at Humble Sea Brewing's beer garden on the Santa Cruz Wharf.
Of all the regional hot dogs in America, the Chicago dog might make the least sense from a culinary standpoint. The recipe includes region-specific ingredients like neon-green sweet pickle relish and a Vienna Beef hot dog, as well as tomato wedges, pickled sport peppers, yellow mustard, chopped white onion and a dash of celery salt on a steamed poppy-seed bun.
The combination might sound unusual to anyone outside of the Midwest, but the balance of sweet relish and tomato with crunchy, spicy pickles and peppers, the herbal celery salt and fluffy bun, with a snappy all-beef hot dog has made the Chicago dog an icon. No trip to the Windy City is complete without it, and the recipe is replicated at hot dog stands throughout the United States.
But the only place to get a true, real-deal Chicago dog in Central California is at River Dogs, a hot dog stand in a parking lot behind Joe’s Bar in Boulder Creek, in the far northern end of the San Lorenzo Valley, a half-hour’s drive from the coast. While the rest of the ingredients can be replicated, River Dogs is the only hot dog stand in the region that carries real Vienna Beef hot dogs. Now, the dogs can also be found midweek through the summer at Humble Sea Brewing’s seasonal pop-up beer garden on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.
Vienna Beef, a 131-year-old Chicago-based company that helped popularize the Chicago dog, wouldn’t sell River Dogs its hot dogs until owners Paul Faraone and Chris McCann attended its two-day Hot Dog University in Southern California to learn how to correctly prepare the product. Instruction included hot dog history, learning how to make a Chicago dog and serving more than 200 guests in a single day.
Everything, from the meat to the bun, is very specific, says Faraone. “You see places where they have Chicago-style hot dogs. We don’t have Chicago-style. These are the real Chicago dogs,” he says. “All of our ingredients except for tomatoes and onions come from Chicago.”
It was worth the effort, he says, because River Dogs’ customers agree that the Vienna Beef hot dog had the best flavor. “Vienna Beef is the real original, and the oldest hot dog company in the world. We wanted to stay authentic and have the real deal,” says Faraone.
River Dogs often gets customers from the wider Bay Area, Northern California and beyond who have come specifically to try its Chicago dog. “We get people all the time from Chicago who say, ‘You don’t have the real thing,’ and they’re so surprised,” Faraone says. “California has better onions and tomatoes, so sometimes they like ours a bit better.”
Faraone, a former plumber, and McCann purchased the hot dog cart from Fifi’s Hot Dogs in 2019, and launched just four months before the pandemic. During lockdown, they transformed a corner of the parking lot behind Joe’s Bar into a patio area, with seating, shade and a stage for live performances.
Last week, River Dogs launched a satellite location at Humble Sea Brewing’s seasonal pop-up beer garden on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, serving hot dogs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons through the pop-up’s closure in October.
In addition to the Chicago dog, both carts offer sausages made locally in Boulder Creek, like the Bacon Cheddar Explosion, a chicken Italian sausage with cheese and bacon, the Megashred, a jalapeño and hot sauce-infused sausage, a jalapeno-cucumber sausage and an Italian sausage, as well hot dogs, a Polish dog and a veggie dog. They also offer up chili cheese dogs with Vienna Beef chili, an all-beef and no-beans chili specifically made for hot dogs, says Faraone. Prices range from $5 for a hot dog to $10 for a locally made sausage.
Faraone says one of the best parts of his job is seeing people come to the cart for the first time. “I’m excited about how people respond to it when they come. Once we find us, sometimes I’ll see them two or three times a week,” he says.
123 Forest St., Boulder Creek; 45 Municipal Wharf, Santa Cruz; riverdogsofbc.com.
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