Californian icon Hot Dog on a Stick is plotting a comeback with a new owner, new outlets and new meats on sticks.
The fast food joint — with roots in Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach and known for its corn dogs and hand-stomped lemonade — has plummeted from its glory days as a staple food at food courts across the state. The rise of competition and decline of malls has slashed its presence, but its new owner has big plans for a comeback.
“The opportunity I’ve seen is to bring it back to the people that have memories about it and a whole new generation of younger kids,” said Stephen Siegel, founder of Amazing Brands. The Las Vegas company bought it this month after its former parent company, Fat Brands, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Siegel said he will open a flagship location in Las Vegas and expand into other markets while keeping a strong presence in the Golden State.
While reopening and adding new stores, Siegel wants to bring new energy to the brand. He plans to reopen some closed stands and add hundreds of outlets, expanding to locations beyond malls, such as airports, stadiums, amusement parks and drive-thrus.
Hot Dog on a Stick has locations in four states outside of California, including Nevada, Utah and Hawaii. The majority of its locations are in malls. One notable exception is the original hot dog stand near the Santa Monica Pier.
The chain currently has about 45 locations, and Siegel hopes to boost that total to 1,000 in the next five years.
The menu is set to change as well.
While Hot Dog on a Stick will continue with its classic skewered sausages, it is considering adding other meats to the menu, including fried fish, breakfast sausage, chicken strips and even lobster, all on sticks, Siegel said.
A Hot Dog on a Stick representative pictured at the original outlet on the boardwalk near the Santa Monica Pier.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“There hasn’t been any innovation done on the menu for a long, long time, so we’re going to introduce some new stuff,” he said. “We have a whole bunch of fun, creative ideas.”
He also plans to launch new flavors of the brand’s famous lemonade.
David Barham founded the hot dog icon 80 years ago when he opened a food stand called Party Puffs on Muscle Beach.
Party Puffs started out selling ice cream and lemonade until Barham perfected his signature hot dog on a stick using his mother’s cornbread recipe.
After years of slow expansion through busy beach locations and fairs, Hot Dog on a Stick expanded to malls, which proved a perfect match for its fast, inexpensive and easy-to-handle menu.
Jumping from mall to mall, largely in the western United States, it expanded, and its uniforms of bright striped shirts and hats became a symbol of mall life of the 1980s.
Bahrham died in 1991 and left the company to his employee-shareholders, and the chain began to struggle.
A lack of updating, rising mall rents and splurges on new businesses weakened its business until it declared bankruptcy in 2014. A fast-food brand management company and its investors bought it that year for about $12 million, and it became a part of a broader portfolio of chains that included Round Table Pizza, Marble Slab Creamery and Pretzelmaker.
In 2021, Hot Dog on a Stick and the other chains were sold to Fat Brands, which owned Fatburger among other brands. Fat Brands had its own problems with growth and debt and declared bankruptcy in January, opening the way for the sale of Hot Dog on a Stick.
Employees at Hot Dog on a Stick on the boardwalk near the Santa Monica pier.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Seigel said he has been interested in revitalizing the hot dog stand brand for years and jumped at the chance to take it over. His Las Vegas company runs Pinkbox Doughnuts, Siegel’s Bagelmania and Piero’s Italian Cuisine as well. It paid $8 million for the chain according to Fat Brands’ restructuring website.
“I’ve watched the brand over the years sort of bounce around and not do anything,” Siegel said. “I thought it was an opportunity for someone like me who believes in brands and is very focused on the meaning of what the brand is.”
Siegel said Fat Brands’ bankruptcy stemmed from its severe debt accumulation, not the underperformance of any particular restaurant. “This has nothing to do with Hot Dog on a Stick,” he said of the bankruptcy.
He thinks he can steer the struggling brand back into the limelight by giving it more attention and ideas than it has had in decades.
“Hot Dog on a Stick has not been in the right hands ever since the founder died in 1991,” Siegel said.
Amazing Brands is retaining all the employees and corporate staff currently with the company.
