Before I started photographing the gyros signs of Chicago — now collected as The Gyros Project — I had an idea to document signs at Chicago’s hot dog stands. I had become increasingly interested in roadside signs as examples of vernacular art, and hot dog stands have long been a ubiquitous part of Chicago’s street life. The red-and-yellow red hots signage that advertised and decorated so many of them literally set the local color for the city.
I ultimately decided against hot dogs in favor of gyros, however, for two reasons. First, in those days (early 1990s) there were so many hot dogs stands that I feared I would be overwhelmed in any effort to find and photograph them. Second, and more importantly, my interest was in hand-painted art work. I quickly realized that most Chicago hot dog places were using printed signage, presumably supplied by Vienna. While there were some hand-painted hot dogs around, hand-made gyros imagery was far more common. Thus the Gyros Project was born. (Over its course, printed materials from suppliers have been supplanting the old graphics that were unique to each gyros shop, justifying the project’s existence. And many of the old hot dog stands have disappeared.)
Inevitably I still found hot dogs stands worth photographing, in Chicago and elsewhere. In many cases the same shop advertised gyros and red hots. Those images can be found in The Gyros Project pages. In this gallery, with just an exception or two, you will find gyros-free imagery.
The first gallery here is devoted to the hot dog stands of Chicago. The second features a handful of hot dog places in other locations.
Hot Dogs Elsewhere
