Why Didn’t Burger King Start Selling Hot Dogs Years Ago?

Major news broke this week with the announcement by Burger King that it would start selling hot dogs in its restaurants, but I can’t help but think that what is really newsworthy is that Burger King hasn’t always sold hot dogs. They already cook their burgers on a flame grill that can cook hot dogs just as easily without any modification, and the segment of society that eats fast food hamburgers is pretty much the same segment of society that eats hot dogs, yet for some reason many in the media are calling this a bold move. A bold move would be if a sushi bar had introduced hot dogs; this is a long overdue move.

Outside of the large scale chains like McDonalds, Wendy’s, and Burger King, most of the small, independent burger joints across North America have always served hot dogs. When people invite friends over for a backyard BBQ they generally throw burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Surely some Burger King executives must have been invited a BBQ at some point their lives?

Some have questioned whether this is the right move considering the trend toward healthier eating, but that trend may not be quite so pronounced amount the Burger King target market. If their customers have no problem with the Triple Whopper or burgers with onion rings instead of onions, I’m sure they won’t be too troubled with the addition of hot dogs to the menu.

Who Doesn’t Put Ketchup on Hot Dogs?

I love Clint Eastwood. I loved the all of the Dirty Harry Movies. Of all the lines that I remember from all the Dirty Harry movies, the one that I remember the most was in the 1983 movie Sudden Impact, where he tells his partner that “nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog”. It’s the strangest line I have ever heard in a movie, because not only do I put ketchup on a hot dog, but every single person I have ever seen eat a hot dog in my entire life has put ketchup on a hot dog.

It isn’t like this movie was made long before I was born and hot dog tastes changed after the movie was made. I was seven years old in 1983, which is pretty much your prime in the sport of hot dog eating, and even then I never witnessed a single person eat a hot dog without ketchup. I have attended sporting events in multiple parts of Canada and the United States over the years, and I have never seen a hot dog eaten without ketchup on it. Every single hot dog vendor in North America has a large supply of ketchup on their trolley. You know why? Because everyone puts ketchup on their hot dogs.

I did a little Googling on the subject and I learned that there are some purists who think that putting ketchup on a hot dog is unsophisticated and who that you should only put things like mustard and relish on them. That is nonsense. If you were really sophisticated you wouldn’t be eating hot dogs in the first place so put whatever you feel like on them. In any case, I don’t believe there is a person on earth who doesn’t put ketchup on their hot dogs when nobody is watching. Except maybe those people who just really hate ketchup.