Coney Island (restaurant)

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A Coney Island is a type of restaurant popular in the Midwestern United States, particularly in Detroit, Michigan, as well as the name for the chili dog after which the restaurant was named. Several restaurants claim to have invented the name and concept. Claimants include American Coney Island and its next door neighbor Lafayette Coney Island in downtown Detroit, with the then-owner contending that he had bought a similarly configured chili dog at the well known New York park. The first Coney Island was started by two Greek brothers who then got into an argument quite soon after, and split their restaurant into two parts, the present day American and Lafayette Coney Islands which are next door to each other, and who to this day argue about which is the "original." Similar claims are made by Todoroff's[1] in Jackson, Michigan.

The main dish is a Coney Island hot dog, more specifically, a hot dog made from pork with casing, all meat, high fat chili (no beans), diced yellow onion and yellow mustard. Variations on this theme include the "loose" coney, which substitutes ground hamburger meat for the hot dog (also known as a coney hamburger). When ordering a coney at a Coney Island, you only need to tell your waitress "one with everything" to communicate your request.

"One to Go"

Since the owner of the first restaurant did not trademark the name or business plan, other restaurants began using the same name and formula. Most Coneys in the Detroit area are owned by Greek immigrants and other menu items include gyros and Greek salads, as well as corned beef and reuben sandwiches. Other fare is usually typical of a "greasy spoon." Depending on the restaurant, other Greek and Mediterranean dishes such as Shish Kebab, Souvlaki, Chicken Kebab, Tzatziki, Spanakopita, and Saganaki can be found at a Coney Island, and the nicer the restaurant gets, the line is blurred between whether the establishment should be considered a "Coney Island" or just a Greek Restaurant. Coney Islands have developed a distinctive dining style that has been repeated in literally hundreds of different restaurants throughout the metropolitan Detroit area. At a Coney, one can always order breakfast, day or night. The sugar on the table will be in a common dispenser, not in packets. The table typically has squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard, jelly packets for toast and napkins that are quite small and contained in a tabletop dispenser. Unlike many other restaurants, the menus are kept at the table and not removed after ordering. Many Coneys are open around the clock and some sell beer and wine (but no hard liquor). Just as in New Jersey, there is a diner on every corner, in Detroit, there is a Coney Island restaurant. A leading supplier to Coney restaurants in southeast Michigan is Koegel Meats, located near Flint, Michigan, which makes the preferred Vienna variety of hot dog for Coneys with natural casings and markets the Detroit variety of Coney sauce and the drier Flint variety of Coney sauce.

The largest chain of restaurants is operated by National Coney Island, in business since 1965 and headquartered in Roseville, Michigan. However, Coney Island restaurants can be found in a wide variety of locations in the US, including Tulsa, Oklahoma; Worcester, Massachusetts [2]; Raleigh, North Carolina and St. Petersburg, Florida [3]. These resturants also carry other regional items such as the Boston Cooler, which is made with vanilla ice cream and another regional item Vernors.

The many Greek diners in Buffalo, New York are similar in format to Detroit-style Coney Islands, even serving their own style of dogs, called a Texas Hot. Unlike the Coney Island restaurants in Detroit, though, the Texas Hot is not the dominant menu item in a Buffalo Greek diner.