Dat Dog Finds a Second Home on Magazine

The New Orleans hot dog chain negotiates the ins and outs of moving to Magazine Street. 

"I like thinking about details on how things look and work," Constantine Georges says. He's sitting on the patio at the new Dat Dog location on Magazine Street as he points out how no two colors are side by side - not on the table umbrellas, not on the benches, and not on the booths inside. He insists that there's only one way you can put benches in the booths so that they don't match the color of a table top and the wood side piece attached to the corrugated metal walls. He talks about this with pride, even as he says, "It's little stuff like that that nobody cares about but me."

The former federal prosecutor is enjoying holding court on his new patio. He has reserved a couple of Dat Dog's picnic tables in front of the outdoor bar for his drinking circle, which will come by later. Right now, he's enjoying a cranberry with a splash of soda, a plate of Anna's White Trash fries - fries with the works named for Dat Dog's first employee - and talking about his expanding business. The patio's not done yet. He's still waiting for plants for the planters, but its centerpiece is the outdoor bar under an awning that has already attracted a few people for whom Friday night starts early this week. It connects to the inside bar through double doors that swing open and stay open during service hours, but the whole thing could be broken down, closed up and stored in the event of serious weather.

Dat Dog is one of New Orleans' newest success stories. Georges and partner Skip Murray opened the first Dat Dog on Freret Street slightly more than two years ago in a shack that measured only 475 square feet. It was so successful that it moved across the street to a more forgiving location - a converted gas station - and recently it opened its second location at 3336 Magazine St. near Louisiana. The business made its name on quality dogs, so much so that Georges says, "I really believe that if you're going to come to New Orleans to eat food, you can add the best hot dog in America [to your list]."

The space makes perfect sense for the casual eatery. Like the Freret Street location, it's indoor/outdoor. Half of it used to be a uniform supply store, and the other half was the adjoining parking lot. It wasn't Georges' first choice for an expansion location, though. He knew he wanted to be on Magazine Street - "This is in my estimation the second tourist destination outside the French Quarter," he says - but he first considered a location closer to Washington Avenue, then the space that formerly housed Ignatius nearer to Napoleon. When the current location became available, he realized that it was the right one. It helped that it was close to Sucré, which he was frequenting at the time with great regularity.

The lot before Dat Dog.

Magazine Street has one thing that Freret doesn't: foot traffic. He hopes Freret will attract clothing stores, antique stores, or places that give people something to do between meals in the restaurant-rich stretch between Napoleon and Jefferson, but he's happy with the way the street has developed so far. "You form a clustering effect, like a food court," Georges says. "I want to get something to eat; let's go to Freret Street." 

The premise of Dat Dog was simple. "We wanted something we could do and have fun doing it," he says. He and Murray were surprised by Dat Dog's success, but the experience hasn't made them precious or careful as they expand. "Everything is a work in progress, and it's organic."

Getting open wasn't an easy process, though. Because Freret was looking for businesses to anchor its development, the city and neighborhood were eager to help make Dat Dog happen. On the busy stretch of Magazine Street that they chose, they had to get a building permit to renovate the store, and a liquor license even though the space was zoned for a restaurant. Georges says the process left a bad taste in his mouth, and he was forced to sign a good neighbor agreement because of opposition from part of the neighborhood, one person, he thinks.

"I found [the good neighbor agreement] almost unconstitutional because it supersedes what the city requires me to do," he says. "It undermines city government, and it's not democratic. While it might be well-intentioned, let the government officials do their job. At the end of the day, I'm spending well over $1.3 million to have a hot dog stand and beautify the building."

The menu is Murray's purview; Georges deals with the physical elements of the restaurants. He considered giving the Magazine Street patio a tiki feel as an homage to Pontchartrain Beach's Bali Ha'i restaurant, but he let that thought go when he decided others were doing tiki well enough right now. He plans to install a couple of TVs by the outside bar, but other than that and the plants, it is what it is. Since the patio's a central part of this Dat Dog's concept, he's concerned about how the summer will affect the outdoor business. "The weather is our biggest nemesis," Georges says, but he figures he'll get at least nine months of outdoor dining and drinking.

He's also making plans for a third Dat Dog, this time on Frenchmen Street at the corner of Chartres and Frenchmen. "I've already got the approval to build a two-storey, wrap-around balcony place," he says. The exterior preliminary drawings have been completed, and he hopes to have the interior drawings completed in the next few weeks. Then he'll have to bid the job out. "I'd like to see us break ground before the end of May, but that may be pushing it," he says. If everything goes on schedule, Georges hopes to have the building done by Christmas. "It can't take more than three months to build the structure, can it?"