Kosher Sports Inc.

The all-time summer fare proliferates

9/2/2004

The hot dog may very well be one of the most maligned foods on the market today. Sure, the truth is out there: The typical wiener, compiled from the trimmings of other cuts of meat, contains a whopping 13 grams of fat, and boasts high sodium and cholesterol rates to boot. Coupled with a starchy white roll and a whole host of extraneous toppings, the single junk-food snack can quickly turn into the caloric equivalent of an entire meal.

Nevertheless, there’s just something about the hot dog: No summer seems complete without at least one backyard barbecue featuring a couple dozen of the links sizzling over a scorching-hot grill. And a baseball game, or any other sports event, for that matter, just doesn’t seem the same without a good old juicy dog to devour in the stands.

“The hot dog is our No.1 food item,” proclaimed Chris Alaimo, general manager of Sports Services, the company in charge of concessions at the Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field. “Cheesesteaks are No. 2. Everyone, it seems, associates coming to the stadium with eating a hot dog.”

According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, an industry trade group, Americans spent $1.8 billion on hot dogs in U.S. supermarkets last year. By Labor Day, which marks the traditional end of the summer season that commenced with Memorial Day, 7 billion hot dogs will have been consumed in the United States.

It’s statistics like these that led Jonathan Katz and Todd Chusid to stake their livelihoods on the favorite food.

Katz, thanks to the good graces of Alaimo’s Sports Services, is operating a kosher hot-dog cart at Lincoln Financial Field, a first for the Eagles or for any other Philadelphia sports team. His own company, Kosher Sports, feeds fans at the Meadowlands in Newark, N.J., and at a handful of concert venues, but this season marks Katz’s first foray into the Philadelphia market.

Chusid, the president of Congregation Or Shalom in Berwyn, left the corporate world a year ago and now cooks hot dogs for hungry customers at Johnnie’s Dog House, his restaurant in Wayne that hasn’t even been open for six months.

Hot dogs appear to be good business for both.

At the Eagles’ Aug. 26 preseason face-off against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Katz had everything ready to go in time for the 8 p.m. kick-off. A score of aluminum-wrapped dogs — Katz serves Aaron’s Rubashkin’s six-per-pound all-beef hot dogs; the average supermarket wiener comes 10 to a pound — sat in their buns waiting in a warmer, with another 20 sizzling on the grill. Hardly a soul came to eat them.

But by half-time, with the Eagles trailing the Steelers 17-14, the Kosher Hot Dog Grill in Section 113 became swamped with dozens of hungry, and inebriated, fans.

“It feels good to be a Jew at an Eagles game,” said Yuval Yonah, 34, an Israeli immigrant who works as a jeweler in Center City. With a beer in one hand and half a hot dog in the other, Yonah continued, “the fact that this is kosher — this is a great meal.”

‘Gone to heaven’

Ezra Wohlgelernter, who came to the game with his 16-year-old son, Yehuda, was equally enthusiastic. He had heard something about the cart before, when Katz’s deal was in the works with the Eagles’ management, but was beside himself when he happened upon Katz and his kosher treats.

“I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said, polishing off one hot dog before reaching for his wallet to purchase yet another. “Normally, I’d have some mustard on it, but it’s so good without it.”

While Wohlgelernter had foregone toppings, Katz and his crew had taken to handing over piping-hot dogs to patrons without the customary aluminum wrap. A brawny man in a tank top would signal for a dog, Katz’s assistant would pluck a wiener off the grill, place it in a bun and practically throw it to the customer.

“Most important, for me as an Orthodox Jew, it makes me feel good to give back to my community,” said Katz, who commutes to his company’s events from Englewood, N.J. “When I was growing up, my dad had season tickets to the New York Mets. The guy to our right had a hot dog, the guy to our left had a hot dog, but the three Jews in the middle had nothing but sodas.”

At the "Link", Katz’s hot dogs are priced at $4, in line with every other stand in the stadium. He’s not upped the price, which is common for kosher meats, nor has he decreased it to compete with the more abundant treif concessions.

“We’re pretty well-situated here,” he said. “We’re right across from the men’s bathroom, so we’re the first thing they see coming out.

“The Orthodox Jews are going to come to me if they’re hungry, no matter what,” he went on. “But I need other people to come to me as well.”

Katz got his wish at the game. Many in the sea of customers, in fact, were not Jewish.

“I figured it would be a better-quality hot dog,” said Bill Popjoy, a New Jersey resident who passed by Katz’s stand. “I feel guilty about eating them anyways, because of the fat. I figure, if they’re kosher, it’s better for you.”

You may contact Joshua Runyan via Email: jrunyan@jewishexponent.com

Several years after a few baseball stadiums made headlines by adding kosher food stands to their culinary options, tennis fans at the U.S. Open in Queens, N.Y., can select glatt kosher items from the potpourri of food possibilities at America’s flagship tennis event.

For Lilly Schwebel, 69, of Queens, the stand made her experience at the Open — and that of her grandson, Aidan Wind — more filling.

“It’s wonderful for my grandson to able to eat something here,” Schwebel said as she purchased a hot dog for him on Sunday.

The stand has been up for a few years. During this year’s tournament, which runs through Sunday, it’s being operated by Kosher Sports. The firm also operates kosher concessions at two football meccas: Giants Stadium, home to the New York Giants, and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field.

“Most of the venues” in the New York area have kosher stands, says Jonathan Katz, President-CEO of Kosher Sports. “There’s a need for it.”

Strictly kosher food became available at sports stadiums more than a decade ago, with baseball venues leading the way. Kosher food stands are currently running at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Shea and Yankee Stadiums in New York and Jacobs Field in Cleveland, among others.

The U.S. Open is almost as much about shopping as it is about tennis. Stalls hawking tennis equipment and apparel, as well as a large food court area, sell their wares to the estimated 600,000 fans who attend the Open each year.

The operation works like this: Deliveries of hot dogs, knishes, pretzels and sandwiches are made twice a day from a deli in New Jersey, and a rabbi is in every morning to ensure that everything is — well, kosher.

Early Sunday afternoon, Katz estimated that he would sell about 700-800 hot dogs, 300 sandwiches, 500-600 knishes and 300-400 pretzels before the day was done.

The kosher food’s not cheap: corned beef and turkey sandwiches cost $12.00, hot dogs $5.25, and a pretzel runs $3.50.

But then again, a comparison price check showed that it was just a bit cheaper elsewhere: Just a few steps away at a non-kosher stand, a Coney Island footlong cost $4.75, although a chicken sandwich “only” ran $8.25.

The kosher stand offered an added bonus that drew both non-Jews and less observant Jews — the line was much shorter.

As for taste, Michael Gladstein, 29, of New York, gave his choice a thumbs-up. “It tastes like a hot dog,” he says.

And if there wasn’t kosher food? “I’d be starving,” he said, as he scarfed his food to rush off to a match.