Family franks

Hot dog truck a life’s work

By: Leon Tovey
   JAMESBURG — You could say that Bill Baker found his calling in life earlier than most.
   One day in 1958, his parents — on their way from the hospital to their Green Point, Brooklyn, N.Y., home — stopped by a street-corner pushcart with their 3-day-old son to buy a couple of hot dogs.
   "So that guy, he knew me my whole life, watched me grow up," Mr. Baker recalled Wednesday. "When I got old enough, I worked there on weekends, popping the caps off soda bottles for him.
   "When I was 16, he got a new cart and asked me if I wanted to buy the old one," he continued. "I did — and here I am."
   Mr. Baker, who owns and operates the Broadway Foods hot dog van that sits on West Railroad Avenue, across from the borough firehouse, said his business has changed since he brought that old hot dog stand to the borough in 1985 (five years after he moved his family to town). His menu now includes tacos, burritos, nachos and a bevy of diet drinks.
   But even in an age when ostensibly healthy food is in vogue and people’s tastes seem to be moving to increasingly eclectic ethnic fare, the old-fashioned, boiled hot dog still has the power to draw people in, Mr. Baker said.
   The van is open from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 50 weeks a year (Mr. Baker said the family closes down for about two weeks around Christmas).
   Each day, dozens of people from Jamesburg and the surrounding area gravitate toward the white van, which is adorned with a pair of blue-on-yellow Sabrett umbrellas and the words "hot dogs" in simple, vertical red lettering on the back.
   Mr. Baker, who served House O’ Weenie hot dogs until the company was bought up by Sabrett, has raised a family with his hot dog business and a Pepperidge Farms bread delivery route. His mother and father, his brother, his wife, his wife’s cousin and each of his four children have worked the van and he said he looks forward to his great-grandchildren working there one day.
   On Wednesday, while his 23-year-old daughter, Josephine, worked the van, Mr. Baker explained that the key to his success has been consistency — both in the quality of the food he serves and the quality of service he and his family give.
   That consistency of quality was apparent Wednesday, as the lunch rush got started. As the truck drivers and construction workers and office clerks began to trickle in, Mr. Baker greeted many of them with handshakes and "how’s the family?" while his daughter got their orders ready — sometimes before they even asked for it.
   "It’s weird, you see these guys every day and you do start to know what they want," Ms. Baker said.
   As if on cue, a burly young man in sweatpants and battered, unlaced work boots walked up to the window of the van.
   "Let me get a — " he began
   "Italian sausage?" Ms. Baker asked in a voice indicating that she already knew the answer. The man nodded with a grin. He’d only been there a few times, he said, but clearly that was enough. Mr. Baker watched the transaction from outside the van with a grin.
   "That’s the way it’s done," he said as the man walked back toward his truck.