Hot Diggity Dogs
614 Ewing Ave. 255-3717
Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri. $
I'd like to offer a warning to the selfish people who have already discovered Hot Diggity Dogs and would like to keep its existence, and its eight seats, a big fat secret—particularly those of you from Chicago, who have communicated amongst yourselves the arrival of Windy City wieners via some secret ChiTown code. You know who you are. The jig is up. I'm spreading the news.
After telling everyone I've spoken with in the last week to hightail it to this little eatery, I am now publicly letting the dog out of the pen. Hot Diggity Dogs is the best regional food specialty imported to Music City since Pittsburgh landed on Second Avenue at Piranha's Bar and Grill, where they pile up their signature trucker sandwiches of meat, fries and slaw between two slices of bread. Thank you, Yankee carpetbaggers, for crossing the Mason-Dixon Line to share some of your fine native customs and broaden our dining horizons.
Actually, Hot Diggity Dogs is a North-South partnership between Chicagoan Layla Vartanian and deep-fried Southerner Gayle Davis. Vartanian may not be from here, but she sure knows how to ingratiate herself in the local culture. She came south 10 years ago to break into the music business and two years later bought the Bluegrass Inn, fixed it all up and returned it to its rightful place in Lower Broad's honky-tonk galaxy. Now she's teamed up with a good ol' gal, and together they've taken a sorry little building and made it cute as a button.
Bigger than a stand yet smaller than a café, the store looks like the Trading Spaces posse took over a doghouse and transformed it into a canine chateau. The tidy two-story brick building—both floors add up to only 800 square feet—is painted putty with red and teal trim on the newly installed windows, and topped with a red tin roof. It just couldn't be any more darling. Inside, food operations take up two-thirds of the compact room—which seems bigger, thanks to windows on three of the four pale-aqua walls hung with vintage hot dog and Coke art and artifacts. A counter runs along the longest wall from the front to the back, with eight red diner stools providing first-come, premium seating. A two-level deck is being constructed in the rear and will at least triple accommodations when the weather warms; a view of the skyline, framed between surrounding buildings, reminds al fresco diners where they are within the context of our rapidly evolving city.
Hot Diggity Dogs isn't the easiest address to track down, unless you have reason to visit some of the businesses in this largely commercial tract of land between Lafayette and the railroad tracks. Those enterprises include Plaza Art, Drury's, Chromatics, Hermitage Lighting Gallery, FAB Wholesale, Sherwin-Williams Paint and, a couple of blocks over, the Union Rescue Mission. Its closest and most prominent neighbor is the charming Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, by far the prettiest and most incongruous building on this gritty route in and out of town. A historic marker out front notes that the church building, whose cornerstone was laid on May 7, 1852, was designed by William & Dudley of New York in a style suggesting an English village church. Hot Diggity Dogs sits in Holy Trinity's meticulously manicured backyard, behind the archangel statue. Davis is researching the building and believes it is the last survivor of a street of row houses; Vartanian, who had been eyeing the property for several years as a potential residence, knows that it was once John Prine's office. Between the angel and the acclaimed singer/songwriter, surely good vibes have preceded the two women into the building.
The impetus for Hot Diggity Dogs came from Vartanian's craving for a taste of home—Chicago dogs are as connected to that city as cheese steaks are to Philly, Reubens to New York and muffulettas to New Orleans. "In Chicago, there was a hot dog stand on every corner," she reminisced while filling an order for a customer who is already such a regular that Vartanian began building his dog as soon as he walked in the door. "I was selling hot dogs outside of the Bluegrass Inn during the summer, and people really liked them. Gayle and I started talking about it and we decided what the hell, let's give it a shot."
All dogs are Vienna-brand 100 percent beef, and can be steamed or charbroiled. "The Chicago is traditionally steamed," Vartanian says, "but the others we usually charbroil." For those who have never had the pleasure, a Chicago dog is topped with yellow mustard, finely diced raw onion, green relish (a brilliant shade, it's also made by Vienna and shipped in from Chicago), chopped fresh tomato, sport peppers (skinny little things that pack a punch), a strip of dill pickle and the key ingredient, celery salt.
Though the Chicago is the prize pup on the short menu, four other breeds are in the show: the Boston has baked beans, onion and cheese; the New York is the street food standard with kraut, mustard and onions; the Texan predictably layers chili on top of its onion and cheese; and the newly invented Nashville has Southern slaw, mustard and onions. Customers can build their own dog from the roster of condiments or—if they want to risk a raised eyebrow from Davis and Vartanian—order one plain or, worse, with ketchup. Children are forgiven the transgression.
Rounding out the menu are a Polish sausage sandwich, an Italian sausage sandwich, and what I predict will be a leading contender for Best Sandwich in the Scene 2005 Best of Nashville readers' poll, an Italian beef sandwich. Robustly seasoned beef, sliced paper thin, is piled between two thick slices of fresh focaccia bread baked by a man who knows Italian, Corrado Savarino, owner of Savarino Italian Pastry on Nolensville Road. Atop the beef is a layer of grilled onions and sweet peppers, and the pepper-olive chop known as giardiniera. A side of jus is provided for dipping, but my companions and I wolfed down the sandwich without a drop.
Don't deny yourself an order of their superb fresh-cut fries, done to a golden crisp, drained, salted and served in a brown paper sack, just as God intended.
The most frequent and challenging question posed to me is, "What is your favorite Nashville restaurant?" I have many favorites, depending on the cuisine, but what they all have in common is a generosity of spirit and service, immense passion for their work, and an unwavering commitment to do whatever they do—whether it is hot dogs or lobster—the best they can. By that standard, Hot Diggity Dogs is already one of my favorite restaurants in Nashville. I'll bet it will be one of Nashville's, too.
