After more than two decades of cooking over a flaming grill, the hotdog guy from the Newmarket Chapters parking lot is hanging up his tongs.
Streetmeat Bistro owner Andrew Summers amassed a large and loyal following of locals for his expertly barbecued hotdogs and sausages, zany brand of humour, friendship, and lively conversation that drew parallels to the TV sitcom Cheers.
But perhaps most notable, Summers’s condiment of choice was kindness and there wasn’t a worthy cause that escaped his attention.
“You will be so missed. Thanks for the smiles and the chats, for raising money for anyone who needed a hand up, as well as those great dogs,” Dianne Marie said in response to Summers’s Facebook post announcing his retirement.
The relish jar at the bistro cart became an iconic symbol of giving as patrons poured in donations month after month for a wide array of fundraisers initiated by Summers.
“You have done many great things for the community,” Darren Crooks said in a social-media post. “Put your feet up, crack a cold one, and enjoy a well-deserved rest. You will be missed, my friend.”
Summers admits the decision to close down the cart was a difficult one and his farewell note to the many customers who have become friends over the years was hard to write.
“It’s hard to leave people after being there for so long,” he said from his Barrie home. “Many factors went into the decision, including being shut down by COVID, bureaucratic red tape to get going again, and I don’t financially need to run the hotdog cart anymore.”
He counts spending more time with his two daughters, camping and enjoying nature, and visiting new places as some of the things he is most looking forward to. Since Summers works full-time, the shuttering of the hotdog cart will mean the weekends are his own again.
“And, there’s been times when I’ve been out there on weekends standing in minus-30C in the winter, in the rain and wind, and the heat, and I thought maybe it is time to hang up the tongs, so to speak,” Summers said with a laugh.
One of Summers’s fondest fundraising memories occurred in 2017, just a year after his beloved wife, Doreen Crystal Ann, passed away from cancer.
He was collecting donations for the Terry Fox Foundation and, as an incentive to prospective donors, he purchased five tickets to see Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson at Casino Rama. Summers surprised his wife years prior with tickets to see the legendary singer-songwriter, much to her delight.
“After she passed, I did that fundraiser and people could fill out a ballot if they put $5 in the donation jar,” he said.
Summers drew five winners from the relish jar and treated them to a Hodgson concert at Rama, including the surprise of backstage passes.
“It’s been a fantastic journey; a lot of people grew this together,” Summers said of the community-building that took hold at the hotdog cart. “You put the word out and it picks up and spreads. I had people come by and say, ‘Oh, you don’t know who I am, but I came by to put this in the jar’ for (the late) Michael Norton, or other causes.”
So generous of spirit is Summers that he shared his ace hotdog grilling tips for our readers as one parting gift for all the generosity that the community has shown him over his 21 years at Chapters on Yonge Street, near Davis Drive.
“One thing I find people try to do, and I suppose I’ve done before I started the hotdog cart, is they’ll take hotdogs or sausages from the freezer and put them on the barbecue, and they’ll wonder why they’re all black on the outside and cold on the inside,” Summers said. “So, everybody that has a cart follows the same procedure: You keep the hotdogs in a steamer to keep them hot, because all commercial hotdogs are already cooked. You’re really just doing a heat-and-serve operation.”
At home, you can boil a pan of water and put the hotdogs in until they swell up a bit. Then, throw them on the barbecue until you get the char you like on the outside.
“They’re guaranteed to be nice and hot on the inside, and charred on the outside,” he said, adding his favourite hotdog to cook at home these days is Pinty’s Street Dawg.
“They are quite tasty as far as I’m concerned, outside of the ones on my cart,” said Summers.
