WHENCE CAME THE FIRST NEW YORK SYSTEM?

Rhode Island is an odd little state. For life-longresidents this is a simple fact, one they don’tnecessarily think about every day, but for manynew arrivals the elements that contribute to thestate’s oddness are blatant and baffling. Breadand milk disappear from grocery store shelveswhen flurries are forecast, we seem to havesome sort of worshipful relationship with ahuge, blue, fiberglass insect that lives by thehighway, we have a deep-seated fear of “crossingthe bridge.” and we go crazy for thesefunny little hot dogs known as hot weiners.

A hot weiner is a small pork hot dog toppedwith mustard, meat sauce made with a secretblend of spices, chopped sweet onions and celerysalt, and served in a steamed bun. It’s notunusual for a veteran weiner lover to eat threeor six at a sitting, washing them down with acold glass of coffee milk.

Some eateries still prepareas many as twelve or thirteen weiners atonce “up d’arm” during busy times, meaningthe grill person lines the buns up on his forearmto load the ingredients. Weiners are alsoknown in some limited circles as gaggers, bellybustersor destroyers.Trying hot weiners is a rite of passage for every newcomer (or if it’snot, it should be), that inevitably raises a slew of questions. Why doso many of the restaurants that serve hot weiners include some variantof “New York System” in their name? What’s in the secret sauce, andwho invented it? And how much of what I’m tasting is actually armsweat?

The story of hot weiners in Rhode Island is a deep and tangled one. Early newspaper reports are scarce, businesses have changed hands ordisappeared and family memories have dimmed or transmuted overthe decades, making it difficult to pin down just which was the original(or at the very least, which is the oldest) purveyor of hot weinersin the state. Luckily, I already knew going into this assignment whothe two most likely contenders were: Coney Island System in EastProvidence and Original New York System in Providence.You might think that Original New York System has the edge. Afterall, there’s that word “original” right in the name. But it wasn’t alwayscalled that. According to owner GusPappas, when it was opened in 1927 byhis grandfather, Gust, an immigrantfrom Greece, it was simply called New York System.

The “original” was added later to distinguish the restaurant fromits many imitators. Gust chose thename as an homage to New York City.If you can imagine yourself as an immigrantseeing the city for the firsttime, having grown up in a small Greekvillage, you can understand why.

The other contender, Coney IslandSystem lists an establishment date of1915 on its menu, which if true, wouldmake it a full twelve years older thanOriginal New York System. Coney IslandSystem was started by anotherGreek immigrant, Theodore G. Kanelos,on Westminster Street in Providence.He passed the business on to hisson, James T. Kanelos, who ran it for aremarkable 50 years before retiring in1984. At one time there were locationsin Providence, Cranston, and East Providence, although only the last is still operating. The current owner is a fellow with the shockingmoniker of Sparky Watts, who learned the weiner business fromJimmy Kanelos when he was in high school and college.Now I mean no disrespect, but such a discrepancy between thefounding dates of two businesses that claim to be the “first” onlymakes me more curious.

Having talked with the owners, and scouredmicrofilmed newspapers for articles and obituaries, I turned to the oldProvidence city directories. These books, published yearly since at least1901, list residents, their businesses, their occupations and their homeaddresses.

Theodore G. Kanelos first showed up in Providence in the1907 volume, but his occupation was listed as “confectioner.” He practicedthis occupation at various locations (although mostly on WestminsterStreet), up until 1922. In 1917 he was alternatively listed asa “grocer” and in 1921 he apparently partnered with a fellow namedPeter Vican in a pool parlor venture. 1923 was the first time “restaurant”was used as the description of his occupation.

The unnamedeatery was located at 16 Plainfield Street. In 1929 and 1930 Kanelosapparently dabbled in real estate, but by 1931 he was back tothe restaurant business, and this time the familiar name of ConeyIsland System appears for the first time. The location was 462Westminster Street.

But this wasn’t the first business with such a name. In 1925 aplace called Coney Island System Lunch appeared at 653 Westminster,and Coney Island Special, 678 Westminster, followed in1926. There’s no indication either place served hot weiners andneither appears to have had a connection to Kanelos, but furtherresearch would be needed to confirm that.So what about New York System? Well, their first listing appearedin the 1931 volume also, with a location at 424 SmithStreet, the same site where they can still be found today. The firstuse of the word “system” that I could find was for an eatery calledNew England System, located at 29 Eddy Street in 1924.

Does this mean that the founding dates advertised by both establishmentsare incorrect? Not necessarily. I’m only reporting what Ifound in the directories, which suggests that neither restaurant existedprior to 1931. There are other sources, yet untried, which might painta different picture.The most important asset of any hot weiner place is its secret sauce.As jealously guarded as the location of a hidden parking spot in Newportin July, some owners go so far as to keep the ingredients in alocked cabinet and banish their employees from the store when itcomes time to mix up a batch.

One such was Harry Kazianis, yet anotherGreek immigrant and owner of Harry’s New York System inWarwick, who admitted in a 1998 Providence Journal article that hebased his recipe on that of Original New York System. Harry workedat ONYS for about a year, shortly after arriving in America in 1947.One day the owner wasn’t feeling well and asked Harry to help himmix the sauce. He may have thought that Harry’s limited grasp of Englishwould safeguard the recipe, but Harry memorized the spice labels,then experimented on his own until he came up with the sauce that’sstill in use at Harry’s New York System today.Original New York System’s sauce recipe didn’t just come out ofnowhere, either.

Gust Pappas had a first cousin named Nicholas who had opened a restaurant in 1920 in Fall River, Massachusetts, calledNick’s Coney Island Weiners. When Gust decided to open his ownplace, Nick gave him the sauce recipe. According to Nick’s OriginalConey Island Weiners website, nicksconeysauce.com, Nicholas Pappasacquired the recipe while working for a hot dog vendor in Philadelphia.We’ve been working our way back along a branch of the hot weinerfamily tree, one among many.

It turns out that quite a few Greek immigrantslanded at Ellis Island, got a taste of New York and went onto open their own restaurants based on those (most notably Feltman’sConey Island Red-Hots and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs) they mayhave experienced at Coney Island in Brooklyn. Todoroff ’s OriginalConey Island (1914) and American Coney Island (1917) in Michigan,Curtis’ Coney Island Famous Weiners in Maryland (1918) and ConeyIsland Lunch in Pennsylvania (1923), to name a few, were all foundedby Greeks (or in the case of George Todoroff, a Macedonian).

All usea meat-based chili sauce, mustard and chopped onions as standardtoppings. It appears that the addition of celery salt is an abuse to whichonly Rhode Islanders subject themselves.Although I haven’t seen a source that explicitly says so, I think themeat sauce is a variation of chili con carne, adapted for use as a condiment.Chili is believed to have come out of Mexico in the 1880’s andspread through Texas to the rest of the county.

This would also explainwhy many weiner places elsewhere in the country have Texas or Dallasin their name, such as Dallas Hot Weiners in Kingston, New York,and Hot Grill Texas Weiners in Paterson, New Jersey.So it seems that although “New York System” is the prevailing namechoice for hot weiner restaurants in Rhode Island today, it stems froma “Coney Island” tradition that continues in other parts of the country.

Both names come from a common source, though: Greek immigrants’first experiences in America, gained in the great metropolis of NewYork City and the nearby urban playground of Coney Island.As for which hot weiner restaurant is the oldest in the state, OriginalNew York System or Coney Island System, I’m sure Gus Pappas andSparky Watts will be happy to tell you. Just ask them.And while you’re at it, ask them about the arm sweat.