Hot Dog Joint Review - Eleanor Dairy Queen

Eleanor, West Virginia (named for the patron saint of yellow-dog Democrats, Eleanor Roosevelt) is a very typical West Virginia town. The main street is the state highway that connects it to a half-dozen other small cities along the river, it has a Dollar General, a Rite Aid, a couple of gas stations and of course, a Dairy Queen.

Having received several email recommendations for the Eleanor DQ I was eager to try their hot dogs. Readers have been spot-on with their DQ recommendations in the past and I had confidence that it would be worth the drive to sample these dogs, so off I went.

The DQ sits right where you'd expect it, along the main road about halfway through town. It has decent parking if you want to eat in and a drive thru if you don't. I was in a hurry so I got mine to go, but I parked and went inside to check out the place. It was standard DQ, through and through.

"Everything" means chili, slaw, mustard and onions. The very first thing I noticed is that the chili and onions were on top of the slaw: An interesting twist. Since the slaw was covered by a layer of chili it was difficult to sample it apart from the rest of the hot dog. The chili tasted like it was standard DQ coney sauce that had been doctored to have more flavor and a touch more spice. It was pretty good, but not great.

All together, the hot dog was very good, but the bun seemed to be straight out of the plastic bag with no steaming, toasting or grilling of any kind. This speaks to a lack of great care in preparation that sort of defined the whole dog for me. It seemed to be an attempt to have a hot dog that was a cut above the average DQ dog, but fell short of those offered at the Clendenin or Nitro locations.