The idea for Bigfoot Long’s came from a story my dad told me while I was visiting home (Waynesboro, Ga) for the holidays. He told me about this hotdog cart that he had been driving to football games and selling hotdogs out of, and he thought if he gave it to me, that I could make $1000 a night. In retrospect, I think he was just trying to get it off his hands. I thought about it briefly, but I would’ve needed a truck to move it and I was just visiting. Also, a quick glance at it made me feel uneasy about it passing Seattle’s strict regulations. 

Once I returned to Seattle, I couldn’t get the thought of the hot dog cart out of my head…..even out of the back of my head.  At the time, I was working for John Green in Ballard at a joint called Jones Brothers. This was before John moved on to launch Wooden City just outside of Tacoma. I was doing inventory in the basement and reminisced about a time when I was 11 or 12. I had walked down the street with my grass cutting money and bought two footlong chili cheese coneys from Sonic. It was the first new spot in town since I could remember. I remember loving them and I went back for another. Two footlongs later and I thought I was going to die. I was super full, and the thought of how long two footlongs actually were nauseated me. At the same time, I felt a sense of longing and fondness. I wondered if any local companies sold footlong hotdogs and found they were really hard to find in Seattle. Suddenly, the name Bigfoot Long’s flashed in my head and it was like fireworks were exploding and alarms were sounding.  I googled the name - nada. Then I googled “foot-long hotdog stand in Seattle” - nothing! 

I consulted with Chef John to see if he knew how to stuff (and the restaurant was affixed with a stuffer), and of course he did. My next move was to look up footlong hot dog buns, which proved to be unfruitful. In a bout of frustration and optimism, I walked down the street to this awesome bakery called Tallgrass Bakery. Walking by it always reminded me of my favorite bakery in San Diego, Bread & Cie because they smell similar. If you go there, that smell is always how you know they know what the hell they are doing.  I struck up a conversation with the lead baker, Amanda, and asked if she could make some foot-long brioche buns for me. She was totally down! I wanted to learn how to make the bread, and if I could get one of my favorite spots to help me, that would be the icing on the cake! I always love collaborating with like-minded people on my projects. I consider most of my projects an “art” project, and I have dabbled in many mediums over the years to find my niche. Because of this, my newest thought-to-reality project really checked all of my creative boxes.

I ended up picking up the first run of buns on my birthday, ironically. We celebrated at my restaurant and I worked the line briefly just to cook Bigfoot Longs for my friends who came to the shindig. I felt so fulfilled with all of the positive reviews that I knew I had to keep trudging forward. Cooking and visual art/ branding are two of my strongest skills. So I started conceptualizing and designing and learning how to cook other things related to the idea. Over the years, I’ve learned t-shirt screen printing, web design, trademarking ideas, how to make mango chutney, fresh pull-apart rolls, jalapeño relish, and so much more.

My next job was Rider, at the the bottom of Hotel Theodore, where I worked for 2 years. One of my mentors and best friends, Dan Mallahan, was the executive Chef of Rider before the pandemic came and swept us all away. Chef Dan and I connected and he loved my Bigfoot Longs ideas and has always egged me on to keep moving forward with the project. I had a hunch that if I could find the right kind of branding, this dream of mine could really take off. I was eager to  use my yarn medium to create art for the concept, but I knew it would be a tedious and long process. I had the vision to fill a room with Bigfoot inspired yarn art, which seemed like a daunting task at first. With a name as clever as Bigfoot Longs, I couldn’t just come up with regular, mediocre hotdogs. I knew I wanted to create the menu with creative names and completely out of yarn too, so I started brainstorming ideas for the menu. I would run my ideas by Dan and if I got a laugh, I knew we were good to go. Then after coming up with the Italian Chili Cheese (a funny name for a classic hotdog with a twist for the chili part), I asked Dan how to make a really great bolognese, and viola - he taught me right then and there. I would also pester the Chef de cuisine, Ryan Cerizo, with questions constantly about how to make certain things like Jalapeño relish and mango chutney. After the pandemic seemed to be waning, I got a job at Frankie & Jo’s making ice cream. I had the idea for Cherry & The Henderson’s and saw they were hiring. I worked there for a year learning ice cream production and ended up managing the production crew. While working there, I had been doing “Sightings” or pop-ups around Seattle and Dan would pop in and help me work the line and slung my weiners to the good folk of this beautiful city. Since this time, we had been scheming together about Bigfoot Long’s and his own idea that would be coming soon. He popped this situation on me that he was going to be buying a restaurant, The Alki Beach Pub & Eatery, and he wanted me to run Bigfoot Long’s out of his spot. Of course I was down, so now we’re up in this piece and serving Seattle’s Longest Weiners!

Here we are, nearly 4 years later, and we all have something just a bit more special than a regular hotdog stand. This has been a fantastic journey so far and I would be stoked if you sign up for my mailing list to see what I have in store for future events - see you at a sighting soon!

p.s. this is about me section is work in progress. I left out a lot to be brief and will fill in the gaps over time and continue to tell the story.