By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
A famous slime dog from Seneca Texas Hots.
Whether you call it a slime dog, scum dog or “some kind” of a canoe, the “Texas hot” is a Western New York institution and one of those tastes you just can’t find outside of the 716.
Generally, it’s a skinless Sahlen’s hot dog that is griddled, often within sight of the spot where the ordering is done. The insider will order “two dogs up,” because anyone in the mood for a slime dog is almost certainly in the mood for (at least) two. The dog comes on a steamed roll with mustard, silver onions and a zesty, overflowing trough of “special sauce.”
The sauce is what makes or breaks a scummer, with many Buffalonians swearing by the secret recipe of their favorite Texas hot stand, and many places offering their ever-so-modified versions of the sauce for sale, ladled fresh into unlabeled paper takeout containers.
Of course, any good Buffalonian who has ever stopped in Rochester has tried the city’s most Buffalo-like regional dish, “the garbage plate,” which traditionally includes hot dogs covered with a sauce that is close to what you might expect on a Buffalo Texas hot – but not quite. The same can be said for Greek dogs in Erie, Pa., and Michigans in New York’s North Country.
As painful as it might be, Buffalonians – and anyone else who enjoys a hot dog with spicy hamburger meat sauce – have to acknowledge a downstate ancestry to one of our region’s iconic specialties.
Buffalo’s first “Texas hot wiener lunch” was billed as “famous Coney Island sausage” next door to Loew’s Theater at Mohawk Street between Main and Washington in 1921.
An advertisement for a “Texas Hot Weiner Lunch” in 1921.
Fifty-seven years later in 1978, the then Century Theater was torn down and took that same restaurant – then “The Quality Texas Wiener Restaurant” – down with it.
The restaurant, best known as “Texas Red Hots” for most of the 57 years that it was run by the Pappas family, was generally acknowledged as the maker of Buffalo’s best slime dog. The sauce was concocted by Greek immigrant brothers John and James Pappas – who obviously gave a nod to Coney Island in the ads that ran in the Buffalo Commercial in 1921 shortly after their lunch counter opened.
Heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and sparkling pianist Liberace were among the millions who ate a red hot from the Pappas family’s downtown location.
Since that first Texas hot was served 99 years ago, dozens – if not hundreds – of small stands and restaurants have made the slime dog their main fare. Two of Buffalo’s most successful and best remembered restaurant chains started as hot dog joints – Deco Restaurants and Your Host Restaurants.
These days, the most celebrated Texas hot joints have been around for decades and have loyal followers. Seneca Texas Hots on Seneca Street in Buffalo just over the West Seneca border is known affectionately in South Buffalo as “Slime on the Line.”
I once spoke with Rod Roddy about his time working in Buffalo at WKBW in the 1960s. Before I could ask any questions, the famous “Price Is Right” “Come on down” announcer of the ’80s and ’90s asked me “if Seneca Hots was still there near where the buses turn around. Best hot dog I’ve ever had.”
A 1981 advertisement for Seneca Texas Hots.
Louie’s is another Western New York slime dog institution, with stores on Bailey Avenue and around the city for decades.
The headlines these days seem to go to the Sahlen’s hot dog that’s char-boiled and served with the spicy relish sauce, pickle, mustard, onion and sweet relish the way that another Greek immigrant, Ted Liaros, started serving them under the Peace Bridge in 1927. For some, that might be the definitive Buffalo-style hot dog.
But doesn’t it suit Buffalo’s personality perfectly to be the home of two distinct and beloved hot dog styles? I’ll take one of each.
