If you happen to drive by California and Roscoe on a Friday or Saturday afternoon and see a line out the door of a small corner storefront and wonder what it’s about, your answer is Hot Doug’s. The encased meats and sausage emporium serves up your standard Chicago dog alongside more unusual fare. How about an alligator sausage with smoked Gouda or a mint and lamb sausage with artichoke tzatziki and kalamata olives?
Doug Sohn, better known as “Hot Doug”, currently hobbles around in a walking cast, screws and plates securing his broken leg. Despite his recent injury, he’s still in high spirits, chatting about the Cubs, or a customer’s recent trip to Nebraska.
Hot Doug’s is of the rare breed of neighborhood restaurant wherein the owner is not only the one who takes your order, but also the guy who talks you down from ordering too much. “To me, it’s just part of what’s right,” says Doug. “Yes, it’s a business, but there are morals and ethics. Part of it is also that we’re a big success [due to our level of] customer service. I don’t have to tell you that in ninety percent of commercial enterprises in the city and in the country the service is horrible. I don’t care if you’re working at Target. Look me in the eye for the thirty seconds while I’m checking out. Be pleasant; don’t just ask me [questions] by rote. Provide some sort of service. I think that’s the way it should be.”
The line out the door on Fridays and Saturdays can be summed up in three words: duck fat fries. The idea came to him on a trip to France. ” I stole it. I went to a restaurant in Bordeaux. They had a big wood-burning fireplace where everything they fried was in duck fat. When I first did it, I used a store bought fryer and I did it for the novelty and the fun of it. Now it’s taken on a life of it’s own.” The fries are darker in color and richer in texture than their oil-cooked cousins, and explain why some people sit in front of his restaurant an hour before it opens.
Besides the duck fat fries and delicious sausages you’ve probably never heard of, Hot Doug’s is known for something else: They were the first restaurant to be fined for using foie gras after the city banned it in 2006. Sohn says, “We don’t serve it anymore, once the health department didn’t find it amusing, I didn’t. The impetus for doing it was not [to get publicity] it was purely to be a smart-ass. If the law is overturned we’ll serve it again. Until then we don’t, because it’s not worth it, it just really isn’t.”
Hot Doug’s is open Monday through Saturday, 10:30 am to 4:30 pm. The duck fat fries are served Fridays and Saturdays and their website (www.hotdougs.com) has their daily specials and their game sausage of the week.