Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 5,325
MI
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In a lot of bad seventies movies and fifties pulp fiction there were always hitmen/gangsters from Detroit arriving to take over the local rackets.  Life imitating art? Watch out Chicago...you're next...  The Michigan coney is gaining a foothold at Leo's Coney Island in Chicago, where the chili, onion and mustard-laden hot dogs are outselling traditional Chicago dogs by a ratio of 9-to-1.
The restaurant, three blocks from Wrigley Field, is the only one of Leo's 40 stores that is located outside Michigan, but it is already one of the chain's top-five performers, said Leo Stassinopolous Jr., director of franchising and son of the restaurant's eponymous co-owner.
The six-month-old Leo's in Illinois has drawn a crowd of Michigan transplants, as well as curious Chicago foodies.
"That was one of my biggest concerns," said Lou Goldhaber, co-owner of the Chicago store. "Are we going to give them a taste of home? But I think we hit that one out of the park."
The restaurant, which opened Feb. 15, got a boost from Chicago magazine, which named Leo's to its Hot List two months in a row.
Coney Islands, which refers to the late-night diner-style format as well as the breed of hot dog, have been a Motor City fixture for nearly a century.
Named for the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood that lays claim to the original hot dog, the restaurant concept sells coney dogs as well as Mediterranean and typical diner fare.
The Michigan format had been slow to expand beyond the state's borders until Leo's opened the franchise in Chicago, America's third-most populous city with 2.8 million residents.
But the Windy City red hot remains alive and well, said food critic Michael Nagrant, the founder of hungrymag.com, a food writing website.
"Personally, I'm happy there's a piece of Michigan in Chicago, but what these guys need to understand is that there's a lot of competition," said Nagrant, who lives in Chicago but hails from Shelby Township. "I don't think the coney dog is replacing the Chicago dog any time soon."
A Chicago-style hot dog is garnished with tomatoes, onions, mustard, celery salt, relish, a pickle spear and spicy pickled peppers, known as sport peppers, all in a poppy seed bun.
It is so popular that Brooklyn-based Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs failed in its attempt to penetrate the market.
Traffic at Leo's Chicago location has tapered off since the first two months, when customers routinely waited up to an hour for a table, but sales are still up month over month, Goldhaber said.
.... Detroit Coneys touch down in Chicago
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming
Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
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