On Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on Food Network, Guy Fieri travels all around the country road-trip style, featuring a different restaurant in each episode. In the "Hillbilly Hot Dogs" episode, Fieri visits his father's hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, and samples the giant and ridiculous Hillbilly Hot Dogs, a hot dog stand with a lot of personality.
Hillbilly Hot Dogs
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This hot dog joint is more than just your basic hot dog restaurant- the food comes with a dose of West Virginia hillbilly charm. Located inside two school buses stacked up to a shed, it has a menu of crazy and creative dishes. On the outside, there's a random assortment of yard sale items to give the place even more character.
Hillbilly Hot Dogs has every kind of hot dog you can possibly imagine, from the pizza dog to the egg dog to the taco dog! These dogs are, as shown in the video, "loaded with just about every combination of everything."
Humble Beginnings
Sonny, a self-proclaimed hillbilly, and his California-born wife, Sharie, started this legendary restaurant back in 1999. That fall, the couple took a chance and built a 12x16 building on the land where Sonny grew up, at 6951 Ohio River Road, Lesage, WV 25537.
Ever since the two have been "celebratin' 21 years of Love and Weenies!" from their famous hot dog shack. The restaurant began with Sonny's mother's hot dog recipe, and they then expanded the menu with their genius toppings, adding nacho cheese, bbq sauce, chili sauce, jalapeños, and everything else they could imagine to make the most delicious hot dogs around.
Hot Dogs Galore
One of the best parts of this gourmet hot dog restaurant is that you can create your own menu item. "Chuck's Junk Yard Dog" was invented when a regular, Chuck, came in and asked for a dog with every condiment they have.
Along with Chuck's dog, they offer the Mothman Dog, the West Virginia Dog, and the Hillbilly Dog, along with the gigantic Bubba Burgers that are "the size of a manhole cover." No matter what you choose, you can bet it'll be covered in condiments, veggies, and sauces. As for starters, Hillbilly Hot Dogs has plenty of delectable "Hillbilly Dippers," from beer-battered onion rings to chili cheese fries.
Guy Fieri's Visit to Hillbilly Hot Dogs
Guy Fieri's mission when visiting Hillbilly Hot Dogs is to eat "the Homewrecker," one of the restaurant's most famous items. This crazy dog has a 15-inch-long all-beef weenie, which is deep-fried and then smothered in two pounds of toppings, which include jalapenos, sauteed peppers & onions, nacho cheese, habanero, chili sauce, mustard, coleslaw, lettuce, tomato, and shredded cheese.
If you eat this monstrous dog in 12 minutes, you earn a free T-shirt to commemorate the experience, which says on the back "I grubbed one and got this free shirt."
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After meeting the owners and getting a tour of the iconic hot dog joint, Sharie puts Fieri to work in a hilarious moment, instructing him to stir a giant pot of sauce with a gloved hand. When lifting up the giant glove given to him, Fieri asks in an incredulous tone, "does Paul Bunyan work here??"
When he asks about using a spoon to stir instead of his hand, Sharie responds logically with "why dirty a spoon?"
After doing Sharie's dirty work, Fieri accomplishes the mission he came for, digging in wholeheartedly to the Homewrecker as Shari watches appreciatively. Fieri gets condiments all over himself, exclaiming "yea, oh my god, that's hot" and it appears that the Food Network star has full approval of the outrageous yet delicious dog.
