How I Brought Back a Classic American Brand

When they were children, Mike, Jimmy, and Joe were on the boardwalk of Coney Island in Brooklyn, where their grandfather would start to eat a hot dog and then spit it out. The brothers wanted to revive the brand to honor their grandfather, who invented the hot dog in 1867. One of the giants of the $19 billion US hot dog and sausage market would go head-to-head with the result­ing company. With Joe at the helm, Feltman's has more than held its own on the streets of New York City and beyond.

Charles Feltman was the inventor of the hot dog. How it changed the world. People wore bathing suits and ate on the beach. The quintessential New York City food was the hot dog.

The world's largest restaurant is located at 1000 Surf Avenue, right on the beach. The place to be was there. In 1916, a bun slicer who'd worked at Feltman's named Nathan Handwerker started a competing stand, selling his hot dogs for 5, undercutting Feltman, who sold his for a dime. His place eventually became Nathan's Famous. In 1954.

My older brother, Michael, and my middle brother, Jimmy, came up with a plan to start a business when we were younger, after reading that story. Jimmy went to Wall Street after college to make a living. He was killed in the World Trade Center at the age of 23.

Jimmy was in the business. I was more of a runner. Mike was a bit more artistic. The Feltman's dream ended that day. I went on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan after graduating from West Point.

One day in 2015, Mike and I were sitting at McSorley's Old Ale House, a classic New York dive, and it might have been the beer talking, but I wanted to revive the Feltman's idea. We had to keep talking about it. The bartender looked at us and said, "How many drunken Irish guys come to this bar and tell us their hopes and dreams and never follow through?" I stayed up all night to make a website. My brother was excited. The person is serious about this.

The brand had just been lost and nobody owned it. We dug into the archives at the Brooklyn Public Library and Columbia University to read about how Feltman did it.

Our hot dogs are made from natural lamb, which gives them the perfect snap. Instead of using liquid smoke, we smoke our hot dogs. We have more of an old-world, delicate blend of spices than most dogs. Our product is all natural, which allows us to compete with Nathan's.

The kitchen window in the East Village in Manhattan was where we started in 2015. A story about the best hot dog in New York City was published by a website. It cost us more to make a hot dog than it did to sell it. There was a line in the middle of the street.

A hot dog is a hot dog. I love seeing people bite into ours.

We pivoted to a retail strategy after people asked if they could buy packs of hot dogs. We're in a lot of stores today. We are on the menu at McSor­ley's, which is the first menu change in 63 years.

99% of the time people laugh when I tell them I sell hotdogs. The details of cold storage and cold distribution and a 60-day shelf life are included.

An immigrant with a single pie cart who transformed the restaurant business and then lost his mind lost his mind. We want to bring it back to where it started.