Coney Island
Detroit, Flint, and the Chili That Rides a Hot Dog
The Coney Island hot dog is a chili with an attitude problem. It refuses to sit in a bowl. It rides on a bun, smothered in onions, and it's named for a New York amusement park despite being from Michigan.
The Style
Not a bowl — a topping. A natural-casing hot dog on a steamed bun, slathered with a thin, beanless beef chili sauce, finished with a stripe of yellow mustard and chopped raw onion. The chili is the whole point, and it shifts from city to city.
The Sub-Styles
- Detroit Coney. A wet, loose-ground beef chili sauce, often containing beef heart. Juicier, spicier, the classic.
- Flint Coney. A dry, crumbly topping built on ground beef heart from Abbott's Meat — distinct enough that locals consider it a different animal.
- Jackson Coney. George Todoroff's 1914 version. Thick, dry ground-beef-heart sauce, with its own loyal following.
Memorable
- No ketchup. Ever. Grace Keros at American Coney Island famously hands over the bottle when tourists ask, but you're supposed to feel the shame.
- "Two up." Coney shorthand for a pair to go.
- The Keros family tree. The Leo's chain descends by business from the Keros family. Kerby's is related by blood. Hundreds of Coney Islands across the Midwest can be traced back to that one corner in Detroit.