WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It was National Hot Dog Day on Wednesday, and a local restaurant joined in on the fun.
The crew at 123 Datura in downtown West Palm Beach hosted what's become known as Ferg's Franks, complete with drink specials and a DJ.
It's a weekly tradition for Datura after they lost their Wednesday cook. So, they put the dogs to the grill and the rest is history.
"Eventually, I was like, I'm not totally inept, so I can make a hot dog. So I jumped in there and we promoted a hot dog day, wrote a menu out and it took off," Reed Ferguson, with 123 Datura, told WPTV's Joel Lopez.
Hot dogs are now a Wednesday staple at the restaurant/bar, and this year it fell on the same day as National Hot Dog Day
"Everyone showed up and it was insane," Ferguson said. "I made like 150 to 170 hot dogs on the first day and since then we've done it every Wednesday and it's a nice showing. All the locals come and get hot dogs and I had no idea this town wanted hot dogs so bad."
Wednesday's special was a Korean hot dog with marinated ribeye, seasoned cabbage, cilantro, green onion, garlic aoli and kimchi.
"It's turned Wednesdays into one of the best nights of the week, and it's always fun having Reed back here when he's the beverage director," Tyler Vanacore, general manager of 123 Datura, said. "It's fun to see him in the kitchen whipping it up, in the weeds cooking up the dogs for the people on Wednesdays."
They also had turkey and vegan hot dogs available.
The dogs come with a selection of toppings, including chili, cheese sauce, onions, peppers, Fritos and more as well as various condiments.
The first hot dogs date back to the 1870s.
Dachshund sausages were sold by a German immigrant out of a food cart in New York in the 1860s. Around 1870, Charles Feltman, a German immigrant, opened the first hot dog stand on Coney Island, N.Y.
In 1880, a sausage vendor in St Louis who gave white gloves to his customers to help them hold their hot sausages ran out of gloves, and began giving them out inside a white bun.
