My friend Roberta sent me a Post-Gazette article this evening, An elegy to the ‘O’: A beloved hot dog shop closes after 60 years written by Mick Stinelli and Dan Gigler. It told about the sad and sudden closing of The Original Hot Dog Shop. A long time late night favorite in the heart of Oakland adjacent to University of Pittsburgh. Upon closing they donated “7 tons of potatoes to charity”. (They were famous for their fries)
We’d get a couple of hot dogs and share the huge order of fries, sometimes before a Poetry Reading at Hemingway’s. Or after. No matter what time you ate there, it was a familiar and reliable taste and experience.
Here’s a photo I took of the landmark from a 2010 blog post.
I’m really going to miss the “O.” I went to Pitt from 1965 – 1969, and I can’t even count the number of times I went to the Original Hot Dog Shop for lunch. I live in California now, but every time I visit Pittsburgh, I always visit the “O” for French fires and draft beer! It’s literally a Pittsburgh “Original!”
Thanks for sharing your O experiences, Ken. Definitely a loss for Pittsburgh. Did you click the article and watch the little video?
Ruth – I completely missed both of them! So I just read the article and watched the video. I skipped forward to the segment of the video about the “O.” It starts at about the 51-minute point in the video. Excellent! Thanks!
Awwww, sad. I hate to see iconic places like this close.
I loved The O! It was a Pittsburgh Landmark.
Well that is sad 😞
Yes it is.
Sad. 🙁 Did they have plans to close? Or were they impacted by COVID? Or something else?
We don’t know. Totally abrupt without explanation
Strange…