The Story of Nathan’s Famous
11–8–16, Adil
Nathan’s Famous hot dogs have humble beginnings. The founder was Nathan Handwerker, a young fella just 20 years old when he immigrated to America from Poland. This dude had no formal education and didn’t even speak English. His first job in the restaurant industry was as a dishwasher at a restaurant named Feltman’s.
One century ago, Nathan finally quit that job and opened up his hot dog stand.
A sly salesman, he undercut his main competition, Feltman’s, and sold his dogs at the cheaper price of 5 cents per hot dog — a price he maintained until 1944 (almost 30 years). At that point he had begun losing money on each transaction, so he increased his price to a whopping 7 cents per dog.
People were actually skeptical of the hot dogs, though, because of this ridiculously low price. So what does sly Nathan do? The homie invests in the con game. He decides to pay off local college students to wear white coats and pose as doctors “on their lunch break from Coney Island Hospital” while eating his hot dogs.
This actually worked. Additionally, just 2 years after opening, he boldly renamed his stand “Nathan’s Famous” (they weren’t famous). Soon enough these cons paid off, and the non-English-speaking Polish dude had created one of America’s most famous foods.
