Nu-Way Weiner

Picture courtesy of Nu-Way Instagram

Much like Seattle’s grunge scene in the early 1990s, Coney Island, Brooklyn had its own underground movement in the 1910s. Only it wasn’t Kurt Cobain playing to a dozen people at the Central Saloon, or Cornell and Vedder humming what would later become Hunger Strike before a Mookie Blaylock rehearsal. It was kitchens full of cooks with last names like Todoroff, Rigas, Keros, and Mallis sharpening their knives inside the hot dog sphere of Charles Feltman — the man who turned a pushcart into a sausage empire.

And just as grunge exploded out of dingy clubs and spread nationally, the hot dog diaspora launched from Brooklyn, spraying dirty water across the map. George Todoroff, fresh from Macedonia, passed through Brooklyn before opening his own spot in Jackson, Michigan — the first to dub his meat-sauce–laced dog a “Coney.” Greek immigrants carried the gospel further: Gust Keros to Detroit, James Rigas moseyed his Texas Weiner to Wellsville, New York — a creative marketing moniker first cooked up a few years earlier in Altoona, Pennsylvania

And then there was James Mallis, who left New York for the Southern route and landed in Macon, Georgia. His unmistakably bright-red chili dogs served “all the way” became known simply as Nu-Way and more than a century later remains as much a Central Georgia culinary classic as a meat-and-three plate or a bag of boiled peanuts.

Superunknown

Slaw Dog "All the Way"

In 1916, James Mallis opened his hot dog stand in downtown Macon, famously hanging his sign with weiner misspelled — a quirk that stuck for more than a century. Honestly, I thought that's how it's spelled, but I digress.

To put that date into perspective, it was the very same year Nathan Handwerker launched his world-famous Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island. But while Nathan’s became a household name, Nu-Way has remained a relative unknown outside of Central Georgia.

That doesn’t make its dogs any less iconic. Unlike the fellow pioneers mentioned above, Nu-Way doesn’t serve Coneys or Texas Weiners. They make chili dogs — a bright-red pork-and-beef frank topped with a beanless meat sauce that, to my taste, avoids the heavy cinnamon or cumin punch that often defines Greek saltsa kima in other regional dogs.

And the best way to order one of their crimson tube steaks is “all the way” — mustard, chopped onion, and chili.

By the 1970s, Nu-Way added the creamy cabbage “slaw dog” to the menu. Finely chopped and lightly dressed, the slaw cools the zest of the chili and adds another sensory layer. I like to wedge a little sliver of space between the heap of slaw and the all-the-way accoutrement for a few dashes of hot sauce — just enough to level things up.

Can't Find a Better Dog

Nu-Way now has eight locations clustered around Greater Macon. Over the years the menu has expanded beyond hot dogs to a full spread of Southern staples — country ham and grits and traditional fast-food: burgers, grilled cheeses, club sandwiches, and of course, plenty of chili.

The Varsity in Atlanta may snag the Food Network spotlights and those cut-to shots during Braves and Falcons games, but in Georgia? In my humble opinion, you can’t find a better dog — said with full Eddie Vedder mumble effect — than at Nu-Way.