BUCKET LIST UPDATE No. 133: Eat a hot dog from a street cart

Me at the hot dog stand Saturday night.

Growing up in rural Alabama, a hot dog street cart isn’t something you see everyday, except for maybe on television. I’ve always associated hot dog street vendors with big city life, a place where folks in suits and ties will get a bite to eat during their short lunch breaks at the bottom of skyscrapers.

I added “Eat a hot dog from a street cart” to my “bucket list” a couple of years ago after reading John Kennedy Toole’s hilarious 1980 novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces.” Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the novel’s main character is a humorous oaf named Ignatius J. Reilly. During a good portion of the novel, Reilly “works” as a hot dog vendor for Paradise Vendors, and he makes the whole endeavor come off as weirdly cool.

I’ve been to a lot of big cities, but while reading Toole’s book, which I highly recommend, it dawned on me that I’d never eaten a hot dog from a street cart. I wanted to try it when the occasion arose, and I added it to my “bucket list” so that I wouldn’t forget.

This past Saturday night, my wife and I went to eat dinner at T.P. Crockmier’s Restaurant & Pub at 250 Dauphin St. in downtown Mobile, which is Alabama’s second-largest city. We parked on Dauphin Street near the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and our walk back to the car took us past a large park called Cathedral Plaza. A few steps from T.P. Crockmier’s, I nudged my wife and pointed down the street at an opportunity to scratch another item off my bucket list.

As pretty as you please, at the corner of Dauphin Street and Claiborne Street, sat a hot dog street cart operated by King’s Dogs. Despite being stuffed from the fine meal at T.P. Crockmier’s, I strolled up to the cart, where the good-natured vendor took my order for one small hot dog with mustard. My wife didn’t want one, but when she got a whiff of how good mine smelled, she couldn’t resist having a bite.

If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have ordered a large and gotten more toppings. The vendor looked kind of surprised when I told him I only wanted mustard, and now I wish I’d gotten “the works.” Next time, I’ll know better.

Later, I found an April 2012 Mobile Press-Register article that featured King’s Dogs. I’m not sure how much has changed since then, but at that time the business was owned by Eddie Shahid of Mobile, who operated three hot dog carts in Mobile. On a good day, a vendor can sell upwards of 80 hotdogs while some days you might only sell two or three, the article said.

In the end, how many of you have ever eaten a hot dog from a street cart? Where were you? How’d you get them to fix your hot dog? Let us know in the comments section below.