Hot Doug's Owner Doug Sohn Describes History Of Hot Dog Spot

The Story Of The City's Encased-Meats Mastermind

When Doug Sohn was working as a cookbook editor in 1998, he and three friends set out to evaluate the city's hot dogs stands. Little did they know what would develop from their food safaris.

For lunch, they would go out, order four hot dogs and four fries, and then head back to the office to write short reviews of their experiences. In doing so, they visited more than 40 restaurants in the course of two years.

"One of the things I quickly realized was that the Chicago-style hot dog has this reputation around the world, but that most spots were doing a C-minus job," Sohn told a crowd of listeners at a Skokie lecture on Sunday.

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