The Best Hot Dog in the Country!!!

Photo courtesy of Holly Eats

Rachel Ray and her Every Day Magazine has teamed up with the great folks at the food blog Serious Eats in search of the nation's best hot dog. A very worthy endeavor in my opinion.

Unfortunately, Yank's Franks was not included in the selection process since we weren't yet in business at the time of the pairings.

Similar to the methodology used by the NCAA, the country was divided into four quadrants. A total of 64 hot dogs joints in all were chosen, 16 from each section. [Bracket chart is courtesy of seriouseats.com] In addition to others, the northeast was proudly represented by Flo's Hot Dogs. I am pleased to see that two joints were selected from Hot Diggity's and my old stomping ground, Fairfield, CT. Both Rawley's and Super Duper Weenie made the cut. I can attest to the fact that both joints are amazing.

The three judges, Ed Levine, Adam Kuban and Hawk Krall combed over three thousand miles to select the grand prize winner. The East Coast bracket was likely the most difficult since there are so many great hot dog joints clustered up here in our corner of the country.

When all was said and done, a small hot dog joint outside of Chicago was crowned, America's Best Hot Dog. The place is known as Gene & Jude's by some, but their sign identifies them as Gene's & Jude's. Call it what you like. I know next time I'm in the Chicago area, I'm stopping at Gene's & Jude's. I'll also be visiting Portillo's and Super Dawg and Hot Doug's and a few more of the Chicago greats.

Frankly, Yank's Franks serves the BEST dogs!