Coney Island (restaurant)

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For other uses see Coney Island (disambiguation).
Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island are competing restaurants, each with their own proud devotees. They are considered the pinnacle of Detroit coney island restaurants.
Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island are competing restaurants, each with their own proud devotees. They are considered the pinnacle of Detroit coney island restaurants.

A Coney Island is a type of Greek 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.

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[edit] Genealogy of the name

Coney Islands are a unique type of Greek restaurant that originated in Detroit. Several restaurants claim to have invented the name and concept. Claimants include American Coney Island [1] in downtown Detroit, established by Greek immigrant Gust Keros in 1917, with the then-owner contending that he had bought a similarly configured chili dog at the well known New York park. The first Coney Islands were started by Keros and his brother, who 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 in Jackson, Michigan.

[edit] Typical menu

"One to Go"
"One to Go"

Two of the most popular items on the coney island menu are the Gyro and Coney island. Gyros or gyro (pronounced /ˈjɪəroʊ/ or /ˈdʒaɪroʊ/, Greek: γύρος "turn") is a Greek fast food;. It is a kind of meat roasted on a vertical rotisserie. The most common fillings are tomato, onions, and tzatziki sauce. French fries are a common side dish. Sometimes the name is applied to the form of the sandwich (pita wrapped around filling) rather than to the filling itself, and sometimes the name "souvlaki" is applied to the sandwich.

Another main dish is a Coney Island hot dog, more specifically, a hot dog made from beef and pork with casing, all meat, chili (no beans) made with beef hearts and spices that include cumin, 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 server "one with everything" to communicate your request. Chili fries, covered in the same sauce as the hot dog, are a common side order. In a Detroit Coney Island, the local ginger ale, Vernors [2]] will also be found.

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. 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.

[edit] Growth of the Coney Island restaurant

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 still owned by Greek or Albanian 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, Spanakopita, and Saganaki can be found at a Coney Island. Increasingly, the more upscale the restaurant's target market, the line is. These restaurants also carry other regional items such as the Boston Cooler, which is a float made with vanilla ice cream and Vernors ginger ale, another regional item.

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.

[edit] External links