New York’s Coney Island is so culturally linked with hot dogs that the word “Coney” is synonymous with the food in many parts of the country.
This is because the hot dog as we know it was invented on the beach at Coney Island. We may not remember the name of the man who invented them or his original hot dog brand, but two Army veterans and brothers, Joe and Michael Quinn, are out to change that.
“My brothers and I grew up in the Coney Island area,” Joe Quinn tells Military.com. “Spending summers at Coney island, our grandfather would always tell us about the great Charles Feltman. He’d tell us the story of Charles Feltman and how he invented the hot dog, right where we were standing. He had a small pie cart, and he turned the pie cart into his first hot dog park.”
In 1869, German-born immigrant Charles Feltman was a pushcart food salesman on Coney Island beaches. After a couple of years selling pies to pleasure seekers on the beaches, he decided to offer them something from his home country: a frankfurter.
Instead of serving it on a plate with potato salad, however, he put it in a roll for easy carry and consumption. He called it a Coney Island Red Hot, but the rest of the world would come to know it as the hot dog.