With William Handwerker, grandson of Nathan Handwerker, Author of Nathan's Famous: The First 100 Years, An Unauthorized View of America’s Favorite Frankfurter Company
Hot dogs on the Fourth of July—or any other day of the year—often means Nathan’s Famous on a bun.
But back in 1916 when Bill Handwerker’s grandfather opened a small frankfurter stand on Coney Island, he wasn’t seeking fame as much as survival in a vast sea of other frankfurter stands. How Nathan Handwerker blew away the competition is the subject of his grandson, Bill Handwerker’s new book, Nathan's Famous: The First 100 Years, An Unauthorized View of America’s Favorite Frankfurter Company.
Nathan Handwerker arrived in New York City in 1912, the period of the great European immigration, not knowing the language or the culture of his adopted land. Within four years, he opened his first stand serving French fries, malted milkshakes, and frankfurters, the traditional fare offered by everyone else all along the busy stretch of Coney Island. Competition was intense.
To differentiate himself from the pack, Nathan boldly slashed the price of his frankfurters in half, from ten cents to five. When his unhappy competitors struck back with rumors that he had compromised the quality of his product in order to reduce the price, Nathan reacted with the spirit of a pioneer American entrepreneur. He had people dressed in doctor’s coats and stethoscopes (borrowed from a local hospital) eating hot dogs in front of his restaurant, so passersby would think, “Well, if a doctor can eat here, it must be good for you.” And Nathan’s was on its way to becoming the iconic brand we know today.
Bill writes that it wasn’t exactly a straight path to success from that point forward, however. As in most longtime businesses, there were ups and downs.
When Bill’s father came back from World War II, he recognized that Nathan’s Famous had to join the mass migration to the suburbs; a simple stand on Coney Island couldn’t sustain the growing members of the Handwerker family anymore. And so a second store was opened on Long Island, and more were to follow.
By the time Bill himself came onboard, the company was thriving, and Nathans’ Famous was a packaged item on sale in supermarkets across the country. One of the setbacks occurred, however, when Nathan’s Famous purchased Wetson’s, a prominent hamburger fast food outlet, a venture that was to prove costly and count as one of the missteps in the history of the company. Nathan’s survived this setback, however, through a lot of hard work and an uncompromising dedication to quality and service, which Bill claims is the primary reason behind their 100 years of success.
Today the company is no longer family-owned, but the legacy left by a Polish immigrant who turned a simple frankfurter into an iconic brand is a success story as American as apple pie.
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Steve Pomeranz: From a meager frankfurter stand in Coney Island, New York in 1916, to America's most loved and iconic household brand, Nathan's Famous is an icon we all know. My next guest is the grandson of the founder of Nathan's Famous, and he has written a book,
