Hot dogs keep Avondale business sizzling

By BILL BANKS
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/28/05

Leo Shababy Jr. is by no means a hot dog snob — or any kind of snob, for that matter.

He still personally prepares food and takes customer orders in the restaurant he's run for nearly half his life. In the grand tradition of Chicago populists — Shababy's hometown — he's a man of the people, and no snob can make that claim.

Leo Shababy Jr., owner of Skip's hot dog restaurant in Avondale Estates On-site catering at local dealership

But Shababy has vivid, passionate criteria for those hot dogs he serves.

"First," he said, "you have to have good meat. We use kosher-style beef, which essentially means pure beef, no fillers. The truth is, if you're not eating kosher hot dogs, you're getting bits and pieces of things I'd just as soon not think about."

Shababy owns Skip's in Avondale Estates, which, for 25 years, has been a quiet, unassuming hymn to Chicago-style hot dogs. Of course, the restaurant offers chicken sandwiches, BLTs, Reubens, bratwursts, club sandwiches, Philly cheese steaks, and so forth.

But its staples remain the Chicago Dog and the Maxwell Street Polish Sausage, each with its foundation of what Shababy calls MKRO — mustard, ketchup, relish and onions.

The Chicago Dog is replete with sport peppers and a kosher dill pickle to top off the Vienna dog. The Maxwell features a charbroiled Polish sausage with grilled onions, spicy mustard and a kosher dill pickle, served on a grilled hot dog bun.

This latter, with its sprawling, diversified flavors, is named for the famous Chicago boulevard and neighborhood that was essentially shut down in 1994 when the University of Illinois at Chicago acquired the area for its campus.

A Web site devoted to Maxwell Street's history describes it as "the greatest outdoor urban bazaar ever — mammoth, diverse, exciting, historical, great food, and a place where all ethnic and racial groups got along."

Shababy adds: "On Maxwell Street, you could buy any kind of food you wanted, or for that matter, anything you wanted. You could buy a good set of tires cheap — and chances are, those tires were stolen off your own car minutes before. The place had character and plenty of characters."

Born in 1953, Shababy comes from a family of entrepreneurs, including his father, Leo Sr., who ran a construction business for years. Both of Shababy's parents were first-generation Americans, his father and mother of Lebanese and Italian descent respectively.

"Quite a combination, eh?" said Leo Jr., who was nicknamed "Skip" to delineate him from his father. "Between the two sides there was quite a bit of, shall we say, intensity of expression. But there was also a lot of very close family feelings, and I think that's why I'm good in the food business. We had a lot of big family get-togethers, very social occasions, with lots of food, singing, yelling, and more food."

He met his wife, Monica, at a Lebanese convention in Youngstown, Ohio. She was from Atlanta, the daughter of George Najour, who founded George's Deli, now a Virginia-Highland icon and one of Atlanta's premier burger joints.

They married in 1977, lived for a year in Chicago, then moved to Tucker in 1978. It was Leo Sr.'s idea that Atlanta needed a "quality" (translation: Chicago) hot dog eatery. The two Leos were driving around one afternoon when they spotted a brick building on North Avondale Road that once had housed a Dairy Queen.

Shababy remains there to this day. The place is now a little larger. Originally seating 24, Skip's now seats 68 indoors and 30 more outside.

Its menu is about "three times larger" than the original, Shababy said, and he owns a catering business that accounts for "one-fifth of our business."

"Avondale was a pretty obscure area when we started," he said. "We counted on pulling from the warehouses located behind us. Our rent was $375 a month. We leased from Bill Forkner, whose brother Tom was the co-founder of Waffle House. Their original restaurant was about a quarter-mile down the street from us.

"We opened on Jan. 2, 1980, and we already had a line. We basically had our first month's rent paid after the first six hours."

Over the years there have been seven Skip's, including one that lasted 13 years in downtown Atlanta. Right now, however, only the original remains, at least until September, when 80-year-old Leo Sr. plans on opening a Skip's in Suwanee.

"He's something," said Leo Jr. of his father. "He can't sit still, he's got to keep building something, creating something. It's that entrepreneurial mentality."

From the beginning, hot dogs — the name was probably coined around 1902 — have been eagerly gobbled on urban street corners and ballparks, but they've also taken their hits from nutritionists.

"Let's face it," Shababy said, "hot dogs aren't your low-carb, lose-weight kind of food. You have to eat a balanced meal, and you have to eat a good hot dog that's pure beef, which provides great protein.

"You also have to watch what you put on a hot dog. There are people who put cole slaw on them. I think that's an Alabama thing, and I can't say I'm crazy about it. Other people put cole slaw and sauerkraut on them, which is basically weird.

"But we carry all those condiments here, and if you want to load up with sauerkraut, go right ahead. We still love you to death."

• Information: 404-292-6703 or www.skipshotdogs.com.