According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, there will be more than 1.67 million Fenway Franks thrown into mouths this year at the old park. It is the leading stadium in the country in that category, at the forefront of the nation’s consumption of an astounding 21 million-plus frankfurters expected to be served at ballparks in 2010. If you stubborn folk insist on putting ketchup on the dog, that’s OK — you’re still part of the one of the true constants in baseball history.
While the sheer numbers set Boston apart from other stadiums, so too does a vending machine down the right-field line which will give you a fresh steamed dog without forcing you to talk to a vendor or fumble for change with hungry folks behind you.
It is called Hot Nosh Boston, the brainchild of Wayne Feder, who took an existing technology that heats the dogs and buns before you can say “Mike Lowell should be the designated hitter” and brought it to those only familiar with the Chelsea-made Fenway Franks.
“Thirty-two seconds and all the magic happens,” said Feder, who also has a machine at TD Garden and has recently added other food options in a second machine at Fenway.
There, pizza is a popular product, also ready in seconds and piping hot. The knish is a big haul as well. But what causes the lines to build up will always be the hot dog. It just makes sense when you’re at the ballpark.
“I don’t go to a lot of baseball games, but when I do, I feel justified eating a hot dog,” said Sally, a Bangor, Maine, resident who was munching a dog behind the grandstand at a recent game. “There’s some justification there.”
Sally, who declined to give her last name, was a bit shy about trying a hot dog out of a vending machine, but in the spirit of the hot dog-baseball marriage, gave it a shot.
Feder said there is trepidation at times from consumers. After all, the words Fenway Frank just roll off the tongue. “Vending machine hot dog” does not.
“To come up to a machine and buy something, people are a little bit nervous about that,” he said. “These kinds of settings where you are not used to it, it’s new.”
How the dog gets purchased may be new to some. The act of smothering it in mustard and relish (and ketchup for you misguided folks) is not. Nearly two million hungry fans at Fenway can attest to that each year.
