Oct 20, 2002 By Glenn Tunney 9 min read

The delicious aroma wafting down Water Street set mouths watering in generations of Brownsville residents. “One thing I loved about Fiddle’s,” says Phyllis Barreca Grossi of Phoenixville, Pa., “was the smell of the hot dogs as you rounded the corner toward Water Street. Of course, you had to stop, even if you weren’t hungry. No one made hot dogs like Fiddle’s!”

Geraldine Beaver Howe of San Diego heartily agrees.

“When I was one of 10 kids growing up in Brownsville,” she told me, “our dad was a coal miner, barely making a living to support all of us. But once in a while we were treated to some of the ‘fixin’s’ from Fiddle’s. Oh, my! As I close my eyes and let my memory take me back, I can still smell the hot dogs and hamburgers, with mustard and fresh onions.”

Fiddle’s hot dogs were literally the stuff of dreams.

“Kunky Stenson and I were serving in the Merchant Marine during World War II,” Brownsville native Bob Davison told me.

“We were in Italy, which was ravaged by war, and there wasn’t much good food to eat. We would often say to each other, ‘When we get back home, we’re going to Fiddle’s.’

“After the war ended,” Bob continued, “I played in a band, and we often played at Nemacolin Country Club and other nice places. The people who hired us were gracious and would invite us to eat with them. Toby Lyons and I would always tell them we had eaten already. Then, when the job was over, we’d go to Fiddle’s for hot dogs.”

The fame of Fiddle’s hot dogs seems to know no boundaries.

“I had relatives,” remarked Burte John of Pittsburgh, “who drove from Canton, Ohio, quite often just to have Fiddle’s hot dogs. We have never tasted any like them again.”

Determined to learn the secret of Fiddle’s hot dogs, I grilled George Hallal, son of Fiddle’s founder, Fadell Hallal, hoping to find out the truth about those wonderful wieners.

George wouldn’t crack.

“I don’t know what that secret was,” said George. “My dad and my uncle, John Mitchell, would go to different provision companies until they got the hot dog they wanted. Before the war, we used to get them out of Pittsburgh from Freed and Rhineman, a German packing company on the North Side that may still be there. Those hot dogs had the sheep casings, and those were my favorites. They’d get hard and crack open.

“Even in later years, if John Mitchell got a batch of hot dogs that he didn’t think was right, he’d call Kahn’s – we were getting them at Kahn’s, then – or send Kahn’s a letter, saying there was too much of this or that in the hot dog.”

Interesting information.

But I was not satisfied that I had found the complete answer to why Fiddle’s hot dogs are renowned throughout the civilized world.

I pressed George for more clues.

“Was the secret of the hot dogs in the way they were cooked?” I suggested.

“They cooked them on the grill,” George replied. “They had two grills. They made the hamburgers on one, and the hot dogs on the other. One end of the grill didn’t have high heat; it was a low heat. Then, as you moved to the right, you got more heat, so that you could slowly move the hot dogs over. By the time they moved all the way over, they were pretty well done. The effect was that they were slow-cooked. If you cooked them too fast, they’d get hard and burn right away.”

Well, maybe that grill technique was the secret of Fiddle’s delicious hot dogs, but I was not giving up so easily.

In the 1940s, Fadell Hallal made his brother-in-law, John Mitchell, a partner in the business, and they worked together for years.

I called on John Mitchell’s widow, Katherine, at her Pearl Street home. After several moments of conversation about Fiddle’s, I felt the moment was right, and I slipped The Question into the conversation.

“Do you know,” I asked Katherine, innocently, “the secret of Fiddle’s hot dogs?”

Katherine digested the question. After some consideration, she spoke.

“I think you have to cook them slowly on the griddle,” she replied, “steam the buns, and use only the best quality of hand-chopped Spanish onions.

The gas griddle is hottest over the burner, and you’d move it away from the burners to cook them slowly.”

Hmm.

No great “secret” there, either. Perhaps George Hallal was right when he offered yet another explanation for the popularity of Fiddle’s hot dogs.

“When people ask me, ‘What was the secret to the hot dogs?'” said George, “I say I think it was the good atmosphere, the friendly people and the quick service. You didn’t get a cold hot dog or a cold cup of coffee at Fiddle’s.

“My dad would say, ‘When they come in, you wait on them right away. You can’t stop and talk to somebody.’ Service was very important. We had competition from Hagan’s, Isaly’s, Mary McCann’s, Mitchell’s Restaurant (no relation), the Nut Shop and others. But my dad always said competition is healthy, because it brings people to town.”

“One year, the chamber of commerce was having a promotion and we were giving away a savings bond if you could guess the number of hot dogs that were sold at Fiddle’s up until that year. I asked my dad, ‘How do you know how many hot dogs you sold?’

“He kept very meticulous records. He knew how many pounds of hot dogs he had bought, and how many hot dogs were in a pound, so he said it wasn’t very hard to figure out.

“The winner of the contest was Bob Delaney. He ate there every day, so he probably ate quite a few of them himself,” George laughed. “I’ve long forgotten the winning number, but it was in the millions of hot dogs.”

Fiddle’s did a booming business, selling hot dogs and plenty of other menu items. The staff was kept busy taking orders and delivering food to the booths.

“But you know,” said George, “in the ’40s, when I worked there, we never wrote down an order and you never forgot anything. The girls would just call the orders out; they didn’t give you slips. ‘Two With’ meant ‘two hot dogs with mustard and onions.’ I could almost sit down at the end of the evening and remember every customer and what they ordered.”

“What did a hot dog cost?” I asked.

“Hot dogs in the ’30s were a nickel, hamburgers were a nickel and coffee was a nickel. My dad used to say, ‘Do you know how many hot dogs I have to sell to put a dollar in that register? That’s why you have to work hard.’

“When my father came to this country, he couldn’t read or write English. He had to learn figures fast. He could add a column of 20 figures in his head, and he never made a mistake. When they’d deliver the cakes and the buns in the morning, he’d check over the bill and correct them if he found an error. He was always right, because he trained himself that way.”

After evening ball games at the high school, Fiddle’s was always hopping. Mary Kolbash Rakas, a waitress in the early ’50s, recalled, “After football games, the team would come into Fiddle’s, and you had to have dozens of milkshakes and hamburgers ready.”

Willard Peet of Poland, Ohio, played basketball for the Brownsville Brownies from 1953-1955.

“What I remember about Fiddle’s,” Willard told me, “is that after every basketball game, win or lose, Coach Ed Addis and Coach Kreuter would take the team there for hamburgers and milkshakes.”

Coach Addis’s daughter, Leslie, now lives in Seattle. When she and her father revisited Fiddle’s a few years ago, they got a nice surprise.

“My father had often told my husband and me how he would take his team to Fiddle’s after every home game. In later years, when we would visit Fiddle’s with him, he would look around the restaurant like he could still see his younger self with his team, enjoying their meal at Fiddle’s, talking over their latest game.

“One day in the mid-1990s, we took dad back to Fiddle’s. One of the waitresses came up to my dad, called him by name and told him she remembered him as teacher and coach, bringing in his team. It was amazing. Talk about a restaurant remembering the old-time regulars.’

Those players chose from the menu posted on the wall. Betty Lou Shabin of Manhattan still remembers that menu from when she was a waitress at Fiddle’s in 1950-51. By then, hot dogs weren’t a nickel any more.

“They were 15 cents,” said Betty, “with the most popular condiments being mustard and onions. A hamburger was 20 cents, and Coke or coffee was a nickel. As for ice cream, a soda or shake was 15 cents, a sundae 20 cents and a banana split cost a quarter.”

Even Fiddle’s coffee got its share of compliments.

“We never bought ground coffee,” George Hallal said. “We would buy fresh bean coffee and grind it so we always had fresh-ground coffee. The last supplier was Fortune Coffee Co. in Pittsburgh, and he would deliver every week.

“Bob Petriello, who worked next door at the Telegraph, came in every night to get the Post-Gazette, which came out around 10 o’clock at night. Bob’s doctor once asked him to what he attributed his good health. Bob told him, ‘Fiddle’s coffee.'”

Some folks remember Fiddle’s food, while others remember the old-fashioned booths, but everyone remembers Fadell Hallal, who founded Fiddle’s, or his brother-in-law, Johnny Mitchell, who ran the confectionery for years.

Next week, we’ll meet Fadell Hallal and Johnny Mitchell, partners in one of Brownsville’s most renowned businesses.

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Comments about Glenn Tunney’s columns may be sent to day editor Mark O’Keefe, 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, Pa. or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com . Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201, glenatun@hhs.net or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, Pa., 15442. Past articles are on the Web at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~glenntunneycolumn/.