Motor City Transplant

It may come as a surprise to some of you that MI has certain edible traditions/old wives tales that almost every MI child is raised on.  The top one being that Vernors is good for an upset stomach (and it also makes an amazing float known as a Boston Cooler).  Vernors, the ORIGINAL ginger ale, was invented in MI as well as the aforementioned Boston Cooler (named after a street, not the city...).  Among other well-noted, MI-born beverages are Faygo (Red Pop and Rock n Rye!), Strohs and Bells beer (I think tapping the first kegs of Oberon of the season has became a holiday for us), and wine from up north.  For solid food traditions, we have bbqs with Better Made potato chips and Koegels hotdogs, a Fat Tuesday packzi, and no trip to Mackinac would be complete with some Mackinac Island fudge.

I wouldn't say we are a foodie state, but what we do, we do well.  And we are very proud of it.  So, you can imagine my delight/surprise/skepticism when I spotted a sign in the Hobby Lobby shopping center near my house that said "Coney Island".  Those of you from Metro Detroit are probably familiar with Coney Island, or Coney as we call them.  They are little dives that are famous for low prices and "the Coney" (a hot dog topped with chili sauce, diced onions and mustard).  At first I was indignant, how dare they steal that name!  But after a drive-by and a Detroit "D" sighting, the evidence was starting to pile up to suggest that this might be a REAL coney.  The more we investigated, the better it got...



Notice the Koegels sign, the "D" and the official name - Motor City Coney Island





All the proper brands are there....

Yup!  That's a Coney!!



It's pop people, not soda



Real coneys are eaten with forks



That's one happy Michigander!


I still can not believe that after living (off and on) in ATL for almost 6 years that I found a real coney island.  We ended up meeting the owner (who is from Livonia) and told him we were so excited that someone brought this to Atlanta.  I hope that the people of Georgia embrace his new business, but I doubt that they will truly understand what they are having.  After all, some things are just too PureMichigan to transplant...

Cheers!