May 16, 2008
Bobby Flay, in preparation for a recent television appearance, studied the techniques of its cooks. The Zagat Guide sings its praises, and even the late and most venerable Julia Child once selected its signature dish as best in class during a taste test.
And it’s not just celebrity foodies that love the place. Over the years it has captured the admiring attention of movers and shakers ranging from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Elvis Presley to The Beatles. On an episode of Seinfeld a character in line at a theatre memorably moans, “I don’t want a movie hot dog, I want a Papaya King hot dog!”
Far more goofy than glamorous in appearance—the store walls are plastered with amateurish bright yellow signs wallowing in hot dog trivia and self-promotion—Papaya King is hardly the sort of place one associates with significant culinary achievement or history’s luminaries and glitterati. Yet since its opening by the late Gus Poulos on Manhattan’s East Side, in 1932, the 450-square-foot, minimalist-menu, fruit-drink and hot dog stand has exercised a significant pull on the dining sensibilities of the Big Apple, from its hot shots to the hoi polloi. It has become, as it celebrates the 75th year of its existence, an icon of street food gone famous for reasons that are simultaneously obvious (good, cheap eats and local pride) and elusive (there’s not much ‘there’ there).
Currently the chief promoter of the Papaya King phenomenon is its president, Dan Horan. A food industry veteran and a Yale MBA, Horan has been with Papaya King since 1999 when investment firm Founders Equity, with an eye to franchised expansion, purchased the Poulos family business. While expansion is still very much part of the Papaya King plan, Horan admits there have been challenges over the past decade with both the traction and the translation of the concept.
First of all, explains Horan, the initial intent of the expansion was to tackle the New York metro area, where Papaya King had already captured that certain cachet. Although real estate prices were high in 1999 New York, it was fully anticipated that price valleys would appear along with the peaks, but a downward phase has yet to manifest. As Papaya King works best as a high-profile corner unit, the availability of attractive and economically viable New York real estate has been virtually non-existent.
While there are now six metro New York units (two in lower Manhattan, one in Harlem, one in New Jersey, and two at airports), the real challenge might be in exporting the concept to places where it is not as historically vested. A Philadelphia unit that opened near the U. Penn campus, for example, won a “Best of Philadelphia” hot dog award in its first year of operation, but it didn’t sustain business and soon closed. Nevertheless, over the course of its long history, Papaya King operated units in places as far flung as Baltimore (there is currently a unit at the BWI airport), Miami, and Las Vegas. Horan persuasively contends there is still great potential in the brand.
“Real meat, real fruit,” Horan cheerfully volunteers when asked to discuss the brand’s salient virtues. With regard to the chain’s signature blended drink, “short of 100-percent, fresh-squeezed papaya juice, there’s nothing close to it on the market,” Horan says. There are no syrups used in any of Papaya King’s smoothies, he contends, which leads to the disarming comment “even vegans like Papaya King.”
Of course those vegans are probably staying away from the somewhat oddly smoothie-paired hot dogs that Gus Poulos’s once memorably described as “tastier than filet mignon.” To this day the hot dogs, now offered at retail and to expatriate New Yorkers through the mail, are manufactured by a company run by Poulos’ godson, and consist of 100-percent Grade A beef (“bull, not dairy cow,” Horan says) and fresh seasonings, enrobed in natural German casings that snap just a bit when bitten into. The hot dogs, prepared right in front of the customer, are grilled rather than boiled for maximum flavor development and are served on a toasted bun with toppings such as the chain’s signature tropical relish, zesty chili, cheese, and sauerkraut.
Horan comments that franchise expansion is likely most natural in the northeastern Atlantic corridor, although other developed urban areas and transportation hubs are also on the radar. He has no trouble discouraging prospects simply looking for a turnkey opportunity, as this strangely ancient and yet energetically youthful brand needs champions who will help grow the chain’s personality as well as the physical presence. Passion and irreverence are terms that come easily to Horan’s lips.
Thus it should be no surprise to New Yorkers who pass by a Papaya King unit this 75th anniversary summer to encounter a sandy beach tableau, Polynesian dancers, and prices rolled back to 1932 levels for a limited time. It might seem to some observers that Papaya King is trying to recapture the glory days. But if Dan Horan has anything to say about, these might well still lie ahead.
