With the 2023 MLB All-Star Game in Seattle, out-of-towners have stumbled across a long-standing tradition that has been a part of the Pacific Northwest for decades.
SEATTLE — Folks here put cream cheese on hot dogs
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 11, 2023
The Seattle Dog, with the unlikely concoction of cream cheese and grilled onions, has been a fare found at T-Mobile Park since 2008 and can be found at food cart vendors throughout the city.
According to Seattle Weekly, a man by the name of Hadley Longe started selling bagels in 1977, then he moved to Illinois.
Longe would open his first bagel shop in Carbondale, Illinois, and after about seven years, he moved to Seattle in 1988.
He worked at Bagel Express in Pioneer Square, where he asked the manager if he could run a hot dog cart at night, but sell bagels from it.
Longe sold veggie bagels, with raisins, cucumbers, onions, sprouts, and sunflower seeds.
But after a year of selling bagels, customers started asking for hot dogs. Hot dogs are something Longe didn’t want to sell, so he thought he would incorporate his bagel with cream cheese and a hot dog.
Longe said he used bialy sticks from Bagel Deli, which were hand-rolled, and created the bagel dog with cream cheese.
“I didn’t want to be a hot dog guy. I wanted to be the bagel man,” Longe said.
He said the secret was the cream cheese on both sides, to help grip the hot dog, so it didn’t fall out of the bun.
By 1999, the Seattle Dog was a huge phenomenon across the city. Vendors were clamoring to sell them.
Cream cheese isn’t the easiest ingredient to spread on a bun and vendors were destroying condiment dispensers in an attempt to make it more accessible to customers.
According to Seattle Weekly, to save those dispensers, a customized cream cheese gun was created and sold to vendors for $350.
While out-of-towners may turn their nose at our delectable dog, many Seattle taste buds relish in the flavor of our Seattle Dog.
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