“Pink’s Hot Dogs founded in 1939, is a genuine Hollywood landmark. The legendary hot dog stand now overseen by 2nd generation hot dog maven, Richard Pink, serves over 1,200 hot dogs and 200 hamburgers a day. Pink’s was started in 1939 by Richard’s parents, Paul and Betty Pink, with a pushcart they purchased for $50, with money they borrowed from Betty’s mother. The land on which the pushcart stood was leased by Paul and Betty for $15 per month. Hot dogs at that time were 10 cents and colas were a nickel.”
“Pink’s offered curb service, and was lucky to sell 100 hot dogs a day. Business is more robust these days typically with a fast-moving line. Paul and Betty operated the hot dog stand, starting with 4 employees and expanding over time to 10 and then 20, and now Pink’s has a staff of about 30 employees. In 1985 at the age of 73 and 75, Paul and Betty retired. At that point, Richard, his wife, Gloria, and sister, Beverly, took over the operation of Pink’s. Since that time, the family has created over 40 combinations of hot dogs and a dozen varieties of hamburgers to satisfy the variety of tastes of its patrons.”
“Pink’s, located near major Hollywood studios like Paramount, Universal Studios and Disney started to attract up-and-coming and established movie and TV stars. Pink’s celebrity wall of fame in the dining room started as a place for aspiring actors to hang their photos to be discovered by producers and directors who were known to dine at Pink’s. Today, Pink’s dining room is filled with over 200 photos of celebrities with signed endorsements of their enjoyment of Pinks Hot Dogs.”
Pink’s is one of the celebrated restaurants again taking part in the LA Loves Alex’s Lemonade Stand Benefit seeking cures for children’s cancers on Saturday Afternoon, Oct. 5th on Royce Quad at UCLA.
From November 8th through 12th Pink’s is celebrating their 85th Anniversary by selling “Chili Dogs for Charity” for 85 cents for 85 minutes starting at 8:00 p.m. Celebrities including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass will be serving up the nightly chili dogs.
Pink’s 2nd generation Top Dog, Richard Pink, is our guest with all the snappy details along with a side of yellow mustard.
Hi, I'm Sherry Yard, the Los Angeles advisory board for Careers Through Culinary Arts program. When I want the absolute best in food 411, I listen to the SoCal restaurant show right here on AM830KLAA. Hey and welcome back. It's our two of the SoCal restaurant show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024, and can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Glad to have you out there. Thanks for sharing part of your Saturday morning with us. We do appreciate it. My colleague chef Andrew Gould will be joining us a little later in the show with his usual Ask the Chef segment, and we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Proters and West Coast Prime Meats. If you've been in LA for any period of time, and you think about hot dogs and hot dog stands, outside of baseball stadiums, of course, immediately pinks hot dogs in Hollywood comes to mind. And during the Olympics, pinks did a very fun afternoon with Mr. T in Hollywood, where they had a sampling of pinks hot dogs that had French themes. And it was a lot of fun. And I've met Richard and Gloria Pink numerous times over the years. They do a lot of wonderful charity events, but I've never had them on the show. And so I was talking to Richard and saying, "Hey, Richard, I think it's time." And Richard agreed. And here we are. And with that as background, it is a pleasure to welcome the legendary pinks hot dogs to the SoCal Restaurant Show for the first time. And coming up, they are going to be celebrating their 80th anniversary in November. And I'll say that one more time, the little hot dog stand that could 85 years. Richard, good morning and welcome to the show. Good morning. And it's a pleasure talking to you this morning. I appreciate the compliment as well. And to shout out about our 85th anniversary that's coming up on November 8th. Richard, again, they're not too many institutions in Los Angeles. And you know, you're looking, you and Gloria are looking pretty good for 85. But in all earnestness, that is quite an occasion to be able to celebrate and unusually Richard, still in the second generation of the founding family. Having followed the restaurant industry in LA for more years than I really want to mention, that's a unicorn. It really is. Well, my parents started pinks back in 1939. And how it started was a bit of an accident. They were looking for a job in the newspaper. And it was a tough time in 1939. And they were unemployed. And they ran across an ad for a hot dog cart. And my dad asked my mother, well, what is the price? And she said, $50. And my dad said to my mom, where are we going to get the $50? It turned out my grandmother loaned them the $50 by the hot dog cart. And my mother went out and found a site that was available for rent at the corner of La Brea and Melrose. And with that, she said, let's go buy the cart. And she wheeled it up about two miles all the way up Melrose Avenue and planted it on the corner of La Brea and Melrose. And at that time, the rent was $15 a month. And they set up a sign. And they went out and found a hot dog that they liked that they could sell for 10 cents. And that was 1939. In fact, on that corner, there was no electricity at all. They had to go out and buy a hundred yard extension cord in order to plug it into a friendly neighbor's outlet to fire up that hot dog cart back then. Unbelievable. Now, was that in terms of how you cook the dogs and kept them warm? Was that a hot water bath? Was that basically the preparation back then? It was a hot water bath. And they created some steam. And that's why even to this day, our hot dogs are steamed. And they snap when you buy it into them. But yes, it was the same hot dog recipe and the same chili recipe that we have today. So what they served in 1939, you can come and eat pinks today. And it's the same authentic recipe. Well, now, Richard, you mentioned, you know, of course, you're famous for your hot dogs, but you're also known for your chili. So that is a recipe your parents created back in 1939. And you have maintained that religiously to 2024? Absolutely. We knew that it was a winner back then, although that we're in 1939, they were lucky to sell 50 hot dogs a day. Today, we sell close to 1200 to 1500 hot dogs a day. And I think people just love the taste of our hot dog and our chili. Richard, I'm into that. Now, I believe it was in 1941 that there was really a turning point for the business. And you know, you have a background in real estate, so you know this better than I do. But what happened in 1941 that really allows you to be where you are in 2024, because so many restaurants, as you well know, get priced out because of their landlords. Exactly. The landlord in 1941 raised my parents their rent by 67 percent. That's at $25 a month that my parents could not afford to pay that rent. And so at that time, they went to the Bank of America branch. It was located across the street and talked to the branch manager and said, I think we can buy this property for about $4,000. And he said to my parents, what collateral do you have? And they said, we don't have any collateral. We don't own anything. All we've got is a great hot dog. And the branch manager said, I eat there every day. I don't want you to move. So what does it take? And he took a risk on my parents at that time. And they were able to acquire the property. And that was in 1941. And as you mentioned, so many restaurants have difficulty with landlords and rent. And fortunately, my parents own that property. So there was no landlord that would evict them at some point later on. And that's why we're in business all these years. And of course, it has to do with the quality of the food in a good location. But we do own the property. Richard, again, many of your fellow restaurateurs, if they could own their land, they would certainly like it because it definitely simplifies those negotiations with the landlord. But as you say, the product has to be there. But there are some wonderful restaurants that have not survived because of that. So again, you're in a very unique position as far as that's concerned and is kind of a footnote because you express your gratitude to Bank of America. You, Richard, repaid that debt to Bank of America because if I remember correctly, they did a national television campaign not too many years ago that told that story and that the fact that Bank of America loans your parents that money. Am I warm there? Bank of America was trying to promote the support that they give to small businesses. And they used that loan that they gave to my parents way back when as an example of the good heart, the compassion that Bank of America has in the way they want to support small businesses. And that ad actually ran for about seven months nationwide. And so the word got out that pinks is a place to visit when you come to LA because people were learning about our hot dogs and learning about the location and learning about the celebrities that dine at pinks. And Bank of America did a great thing for us. And we are grateful for all these years for their support. Again, Richard, a wonderful story. Now, before we go out and take a quick break and come back and pick up this conversation on the other side, you mentioned something that I wanted to explore a little more in terms of your guest profile. And I'm guessing here, but I have a feeling I'm right. Is your guest profile equally locals as well as visitors to LA? And is there ever a time when there is an align? When we're not open, how's that? I would agree with that. I would say that we are probably 40% tourists, 60% locals, because through cable television, through shows like this, people learn about pinks all over the state, all over the country, and frankly, all over the world. And people come in and they say, it's on our bucket list. We want to go to pinks. We want to check it off. And many of them come back. And I would say that we are a big draw for the city of Los Angeles. We have so many tourists that come in from Asia, from Australia, from Europe. And it's amazing as I stand there listening to them order in all the different languages. And many of them don't even speak English at all. They just point to the pictures on our menu of the hot dog that looks appealing to them. And so I'm very proud of the fact that pinks is a draw from really all over the world. But the bottom line is it's the locals that support us. They know when there's no line. And that's really anytime around 10 in the morning to 11 in the morning, or maybe two o'clock to four o'clock. But sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays, our line will be an hour and a half long. And the interesting thing is people stay in line and enjoy the experience. They say it's a lot of fun. I meet other people from other cities. And we talk and we chat before we know it. We get to the front and we're ready to order. And we so enjoy the experience in your patio and all the wonderful things we can take pictures of. And you know, my goal is to try to create eight wows. It pinks. You know, the wows are the photogenic hot dogs. The fact that we've been in business 85 years. The fact that our staff has been with us, many of them, 20 and 30 years. The open front that I call like the longest running show in Hollywood, because it's fun to just watch our staff prepare all these hot dogs. And we have over 40 varieties of hot dogs and over 12 varieties of burger. And I try to create a new hot dog every month. I want it to be interesting. I want our menu to always grow and evolve and find taste that, you know, people haven't had before. So Richard, hold that thought. We need to take a quick break and we're going to pick up the conversation on the other side. We are speaking with the very enthusiastic Richard Pink. It is Pink's hot dogs in Hollywood, founded in 1939 and in November, celebrating their 85th anniversary. We're going to be talking about that on the other side. Richard mentioned it's a big tourist attraction for LA. Understand something is happening with the mayor of Los Angeles. So that's a tease. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's world variety produce. We'll be right back. [Music]
