Welcome to D.C.'s hot dog summer
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Hi-Lawn dishes up a summery hot dog menu starting Memorial Day Weekend, plus hot dog happy hour. Photo: Courtesy Julep PR
We're calling it now — it's a hot dog summer.
🌠Anna's theory: Summer falls into one of two camps: burger summer, when everyone's obsessed with the latest patty trend. Or the less-common but far more enjoyable hot dog summer, when glizzies take center stage.
- As someone who believes hot dogs are always good — even when they're not that good — while mediocre burgers are tragic (and way too common), I say let the wieners roll.
Driving the news: Marv's Dogs just opened in Tenleytown.
- The bright counter-order spot from Cork Wine Bar keeps it simple and delicious: snappy Chicago-style dogs on poppyseed buns loaded with all the fixins', plus crispy thin-cut fries you can dunk, Wendy's-style, into malted chocolate soft serve.
By the numbers: The signs of a hot dog summer are everywhere. More than 38,900 fans packed Nats Park for hot dog night last week and devoured 27,000+ franks. A stadium sellout! Not even the actual baseball team can always pull that off (sorry, Nats).
- Free hot dog hats — now being flipped online by sausage swindlers — definitely helped. So did D.C.'s hottest new dog, Natty.
But let's be frank: This is a tube meat town. The wiener-cast first looked promising last fall, when a furloughed fed went viral for opening a hot dog stand on Capitol Hill.
- Now the dogs are popping up everywhere: fancy lil' wagyu pigs in blankets at Georgetown's Ox & Olive, classic half-smokes at the newly reopened Ben's Chili Bowl, and Taqueria Xochi's Sonoran-style special with its soft serve margs.
- They go high: Lobby Bar's viral $44 caviar-topped wagyu glizzy. Higher, Hi-Lawn's summery rooftop hot dog menu. And low — think a $12 "double dog deal" with a Hi-Life at Last Call.
What's next: Catalyst Dogs, a popular Maryland food truck, is opening its first brick-and-mortar in Burtonsville, MD soon.
The bottom line: If you're still on the burger bandwagon, it's time to enter the wiener's circle.