Bookshelf

So Hot-Dog Vendors Do Charge You Based on Your Looks

Lost and Found, an anthology of stories from Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood was published today, and the 850-page tome contains a few nice food nuggets. For obvious reasons, our eyes first jumped to editor Thomas Beller’s “The Lady With the Cupcake,” which paints the Hopper-esque scene of a woman eating a cupcake from a certain “famous cupcake store.” Writes Beller: “Once upon a time in this town people lined up to get into nightclubs with names like ‘The World.’ Now the world comes to New York and lines up to buy cupcakes.” There are stories about the neighborhoods changing around Williamsburg’s Diner and Park Slope’s Farrell’s and tales of loves lost at Sun Lin Garden (the Chinese restaurant better known as “69”) as well as at Le Gamin.

New York’s own Carolyn Murnick, a former French Roast bartender, recalls rescuing a total stranger from a bad blind date, and your Grub Street editor, Daniel Maurer, looks back on an artsy “condiment war” in DUMBO. In one of our favorite stories, “Uncle Ayman’s Hot Dog Stand” by Courtney Coveney, a midtown vendor admits to charging different prices for dirty-water dogs (anywhere from seventy-five cents to $2) depending on how people look. We always suspected …

So Hot-Dog Vendors Do Charge You Based on Your Looks