I stand corrected. I erred when I said that the Marmet Sam's was the chain's most eastward location. An alert reader sent the tip that there is a Sam's located inside the Sunoco station in Gauley Bridge and that they had excellent hot dogs with a view. I thought it sounded like a worthwhile place to check out, so my wife and I set out on the 80-some mile round trip up Rt. 60 to the confluence of the New and Gauley Rivers. A hundred yards upstream from said confluence, on the bank of the New sits the Sam's location we sought.
An interesting mix of convenience and inconvenience, the Sunoco station has inside a convenience store, a Subway and a Sam's. Convenient because it's all under one roof, but when you order your food you have backtrack to the front door checkout to pay, then back to the counter for your food. The process seems a little customer un-friendly, but the personnel were friendly. We soon had our hot dogs and settled into a booth with an amazing view of the New River (the irony, which I will point out for those non-local readers , is that the "New" considered to be the oldest river in the world). There is also an outside deck where you can dine alfresco, but the heat kept us inside.Despite the view, the hot dogs were pretty much
standard Sam's fare. Good chili and mediocre slaw. Missing from this location were the waterlogged weenies I am used to finding at Sam's. I did not witness how they keep their weenies warm because I was off to pay for my meal on the other side of the store, but I'm betting it was some type of dry heat and not a hot bath.Overall the quality was on the low side for a Sam's: 3.5 Weenies.
I just want to chime in and say that this is the first place we got a WVHD, and it simply by chance. My family was coming back from a long, boring drive to participate in the Bridge Day festivities, which amounted to a couple of food and t-shirt vendors along with tons of people crammed on the bridge to watch people jump. We were seriously disappointed after people had told us it was the place to be that weekend, and we hadn't brought cash with us so we were starving.
ReplyDeleteLong story short, we stopped at Sam's, ordered a few hot dogs, and thought they were the most delicious things we'd ever tasted. This was mostly due to the fact that we were starving, as I mentioned, but still. Also, I commend this particular location on having the red pepper relish, which is very tasty on top of the slaw for an added kick. I know you can't order your dogs with something like that because that makes it deviate from the WVHD "formula", but it's great, and I wish they all had it.
According to this painfully incomplete list of locations, there is a franchise in Waynesboro, VA, which would be the furthest east confirmed Sam's.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.samshotdogs.com/locations.php
I'm just glad you didn't get a speeding ticket in gauley bridge! The last time I went through there I got a ticket from the cops(brothers) that got fired from the summersville pd.
ReplyDeleteFired from SPD? What, did they not meet their monthly quota of 50 tickets?
ReplyDelete