New Bret Harte Hot Dog Stand Draws Large Lunchtime Crowds

Dwight Johnson was riding his bicycle around San Rafael’s Bret Harte neighborhood not long ago when the smell of grilled sausage and onions wafted his way.

“I followed my nose,” said Johnson, a retired sheriff’s deputy who loves a well-grilled wiener. He came upon Theresa Martin’s new hot dog stand at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Irwin Street, where he flipped for the $4 Polish sausage with spicy mustard, onions and sauerkraut.

Now he’s a regular at the stand with the blue-and-yellow-striped umbrellas, a welcome sight in this mixed-used neighborhood, where the only other place to get hot food is Domino’s Pizza.

The taqueria in the little Bret Harte shopping center folded last month. More than 1,000 people work in the auto shops, plumbing supply houses, and other businesses in the area. Judging from the lunchtime crowds, quite a few of them get a hankering for hot links and chicken apple sausage.

“A Polish dog a day keeps the doctor away,” Johnson said with a laugh.  He bicycled over from his Woodland Avenue apartment to pick up lunch for himself, his girlfriend and her son. While the sausages sizzled on the grill, he shot the breeze with Martin, a lively woman who opened the stand in October after searching all over San Rafael for a good spot to set up shop. A lot of landlords turned her down. Then the owner of the light-industrial building at 401 Irwin agreed to rent her the patch of gravel on the corner.

Martin’s is the second hot dog stand in the general vicinity. Randy Kruse’s Naughty Dawg on Lindaro Street – in front of the Carpenters Union Local 35 building and adjacent to the Alberts Field tennis courts – has been serving up a wide array of grilled sausages for five years. His faithful customers work on and around Lindaro, or drive from other parts of town to grab a smoked bratwurst ($3.50) or a Ragin Cajun (a Louisiana hot link with barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese, pepper and onions for $4.50). 

The two stands are far enough apart that a south San Rafael hot dog war is unlikely. Martin, who drives a school bus in the mornings and afternoons, doesn’t see herself in competition with Naughty Dawg. They each have their own specialty. Martin just started grilling cheese steaks, like the kind she grew up eating in Boston. The $7 sandwich is piled with rib-eye steak, cheese and whatever mix of grilled onions, mushrooms and peppers you want.

Because she’s working with raw meat, Martin was required by the county health department to install a three-compartment sink for washing utensils. Her cart, which she hauls with her green Jeep Wrangler, is also required by code to have a refrigerator,  and a device to heat the water for the hand-washing sink. The cart cost her about $8,000 to set up. She tricked it out herself, gutting an old cart she bought used from a church in San Francisco, and installing a pair of propane-fired grills, and an instant hot water heater, originally from a mobile home, she bought online.

“Mama taught us that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself,” said Martin, 55, who used to own hair salon in San Anselmo and wanted to get back to being her own boss. 

“This is something I’ve always wanted to do. I enjoy being outdoors,” she said. 

Martin hopes to give up bus driving and focus full time on food. She hasn’t gotten sick of hot dogs yet (she gets hers from Schwarz Sausage Co.) She eats a couple a week.

“I wouldn’t sell anything I wouldn’t eat,” she said as she grilled up a batch of cheese steaks for a group of guys from on nearby DeLuca Place.

“I had a hot dog before. This is my first Philly cheese steak,” said Sargon Michael, the president of Allied Mechanical, taking a bite of his steaming sandwich. “It’s absolutely great. This place is a wonderful addition to the neighborhood.”

Over at the Naughty Dawg, San Rafael plumbing contractor Jack Wise is buying a handful of the stand’s signature sausages, the Naughty Dawg – a bratwurst with mustard, thousand island dressing and sauerkraut – for his crew. They’re doing some work around the corner at . He’s something of a regular at the red-tented stand.

“This place is great,” said Wise, who tries not to eat too many dogs, “otherwise I’d be bigger than I already am.” The menu is tempting. In addition to the Big Kosher and the Coney Island (an all-beef Schwarz dog with chili, mustard and cheese), there’s the gourmet Thai Dawg, a chicken sausage with peanut sauce, cucumber and onion ($4.75).

“I make my own peanut sauce, cut up cucumbers and onions and add  a little rice wine vinegar," said Kruse, 51,  who’s been in the gourmet sausage game for nine years. Before landing on Lindaro, he was at for three year “before they kicked me out."

He still loves eating hot dogs, “but I try to keep it to one a week."   

That’s about how often Mary Riedel and her colleagues from , a print management company on Third Street, dine at Naughty Dawg.

“It’s affordable, he’s a nice guy and you can sit over there in the sunshine,” Riedel says.  “You can’t beat it.”