Another one bites the dust...

Gram's Specialties in Kanawha City, home of 4 1/2 Weenie hot dogs and Five Star pies is no more. Citing the ol' "want to spend more time with family" excuse, they have closed down.

For those of you feeling nostalgic, you can read our review from 2008 here.

Sam's Hot Dog Stand in Teays Valley is no more...

...it has ceased to be.

The little pocket of Huntington in Putnam County, the Monty's Pizza/Sam's Hot Dog Stand, has closed up shop.

Folks in the Hurricane-Scott Depot-Teays Metropolitan Statistical Area will have to jump on I-64 to St. Albans or Barboursville to get their spicy sauce fix.

As for Monty's...no real loss there. Graziano's and Husson's offer much better pies.

Closed Charleston HDJ - The Snack Bar at the Kanawha County Courthouse

The place that Rick Lee pronounced as having the "Best Romanesque Architecture in a Hot Dog Stand" is no more.

One of the very first places we reviwed in 2006 was the snack bar in the main hallway of the Kanawha County Courthouse. You can read about it here.

I'm sad to report that the excellent hot dogs are no more and that the snack bar has been replaced with a whole host of vending machines that block the old snack bar window like so many mechanized storm troopers.

And yes I looked; none of them vends hot dogs.

Charleston HDJ Review - Maggie Moo's Ice Cream

Ah, America! Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. How can you go wrong with an ice cream joint that sells hot dogs? You can't, right?

 Wrong.

Reader "bingmanch" sent me a note and said I should check out Maggie Moo's Ice Cream in the Charleston Town Center Mall because they were advertising a hot dog lunch special featuring Nathan's Famous weenies. Someone else wrote and told me that the hot dogs were made with the larger size Nathan's weenies and at 2 for $5 including chips and a drink, you couldn't beat the value.

It is big. A good 50% larger than a garden variety WVHD. 

But except for its impressive voluminousness, rather than being a source of patriotic pride this hot dog is an affront to everything right about the good ol' USA.

Let me count the ways this hot dog was bad:

1. Microwaved Custard Stand Chili  - I've documented before that this stuff is pretty good when served at the source, but package it up, ship it to Sam's or Wal Mart, store for months, and then nuke it? Nah, I'd rather have almost any fresh cooked chili.

2. Overcooked Nathan's Famous weenies - What a waste. One of the best weenies you can sink your teeth into - and I couln't sink my teeth into it because it was so tough from who knows what kind of cooking method (I would guess also nuked - into oblivion).

3. Stale Bun - Oversized buns (required to hold the over sized weenie) aren't easy to find fresh, but Maggie Moo's go the extra mile to ensure that the bread was properly aged. These buns seemed like they had been around a long time. I'm talking crusty outside and chewy centers.

4. Slaw - Huge hunks of carrots and cabbage floating in a matrix of a tasteless white pseudo-mayo.

5. The only thing that didn't taste bland was the onions - and they were out of onions.

Maggie Moo's should stick to hawking their overpriced ice cream. 1 Weenie, and that's generous.