America's best wieners? R.I. diner draws a crowd

Larry Olmsted

The scene: A true Rhode Island institution, Olneyville N.Y. System looks like a frozen-in-time urban diner, which it is, but that is where all similarities to any other eatery end. As you enter, you pass the sidewalk takeout window, which does a brisk late-night business, and prominently displayed in the window is the large griddle on which the hot wieners are cooked. Everything else is, let's just say, window dressing. Hot wieners, basically miniature frankfurter-like sausages, are the reason the restaurant exists – and thrives - in its gritty namesake neighborhood of Olneyville. Inside, a worn counter with pink diner stools runs the entire length of the left-hand side, with two rows of booths in alternating pink and beige Formica occupying the rest of the space. Behind the counter, as in any classic coffee shop or diner, is an array of working equipment like coffee urns and milkshake mixers, all in plain sight, and running across the top of this wall are signs for numerous menu choices, from tuna melts to breakfast sandwiches to salads. But no one comes for any of that – the owner estimates that 98 out of 100 diners order the same thing: between three and six wieners, fries and a drink.

One reason all the other items remain in existence is that the family owners do not like change, which is why the place looks like it did when it opened in 1946. "People don't know how hard it is to keep it the same. The biggest compliment we get is 'it's just like I remember.' Everything is original, even the Formica, and every now and then we get a Formica nut who comes in and is amazed by it," said third generation sibling owner, Gregory Stevens. The last time the menu changed was six years ago, when he begrudgingly added the option of chili cheese fries – hardly a revolution since chili and fries were already popular here, and regulars kept asking for the combo. "I don't get it, I'm old school, but kids today love chili cheese fries," says Stevens.

The bigger change is its newfound even greater popularity, especially after multiple TV appearances with food personalities like Guy Fieri, Andrew Zimmern and Adam Richman. Two years ago it also became the only miniature sausage specialist to ever win a prestigious James Beard Award, as an American Classic. The medal is subtly displayed on the wall in back, and the boosted profile means that in addition to the eclectic mix of locals, college students, workers, police and late-night bar patrons, you now add tourists. Truly everyone comes here, which is why from about midnight to closing at three, the line wraps around the comer. While there is an ordering lingo for regulars such as "five, light on onions," staff is friendly, explanatory and it's not the kind of intimidating place where you are rushed and expected to know the slang. There are two additional satellite locations, both long established and just three and five miles away.

The food: There is much argument about the origin of the term "New York System," but like Detroit's famed "Coney" joints, it seems connected to a perceived association between the Big Apple and hot dogs. A surprising number of Rhode Island eateries have the term in their name, of which Olneyville is by far the most famous. Smith Street New York System dates to 1927, and one of the sets of cousins who ran it launched Olneyville almost twenty years later. Whatever the origin, in the Ocean State the term refers to places serving small sausages, aka hot wieners. They are similar to hot dogs, but one of the two cardinal rules at Olneyville is to never call them hot dogs (the other is to never, ever put ketchup on them). They are small, but not as tiny as the mini-dogs popular in New York's capital region and Cincinnati, both of which have been profiled in this column. About 3/4 the size of a conventional frank, they are a blend of veal and pork, all meat with no fillers, a custom recipe made at a local meat plant. They are served on an appropriately scaled New England-style hot dog bun, which is to say, slit rather than hinged, with flat, exposed soft white bread sides, instead of rounded brown crust exterior. The buns are steamed and a wiener "all the way" has celery salt, mustard, chopped onions and wiener sauce, which is what they call chili.

The already-smoked sausages are placed on the grill in the window, which has a dip in the middle where oil collects, and they are cooked in this "puddle." When you order, the counter man lines up buns on his forearm and places the links in them with tongs, then tops them, and this is a big part of the Olneyville show and tradition: longtime staffers can do up to fifty – five layered rows of ten wieners – on one arm before turning to the counter to dispense them.

The hot wieners are skinless and have a crisp snappiness to their fried exterior, with a more meaty and nuanced sausage flavor than the typical hot dog. The chili is thick and pasty, almost a spread, all meat and spice and no liquid, and it is good but not very strong. Like the rest of the complementary toppings, none overpowers the others or the main event, the wiener. These are quite good, and every patron has their personal preference on the topping choices. They are almost always accompanied by french fries, which are standard but done well, fried frequently and served hot, oily and satisfying. The third component of the standard meal is Rhode Island's signature beverage, coffee milk, an oddly addictive mix of milk and sweetened coffee syrup, sort of the coffee version of chocolate milk. It is so wildly popular in the Ocean State that children get the option of it in school cafeteria lunches instead of regular milk. It's milder than an iced coffee and delicious, even if you don't like coffee. You can also think of it as your dessert, since this is something Olneyville N.Y. System does not, and likely never will, serve.

The restaurant captures a unique sense of place like few others and is a must if you visit Providence. I loved the food, but it is made even better by its history, oddity and beloved authenticity.

What regulars say: "Four all the way, fries, coffee milk." The person in front of me said this. So did the person behind me.

Pilgrimage-worthy?: Not quite, but close, special food in a special place and must for those near Providence.

Rating: Yum! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $-$$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: 18 Plainfield Street, Providence, plus two nearby locations; 401-621-9500; olneyvillenewyorksystem.com

MORE: Read previous columns

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.

Mr. Weenie

Rhode Island, a State Sized Just Right to Contain Its Pride

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

   Rhode Island was the state least appreciated by its public in a recent Gallup poll. Culinary quirks like Olneyville New York System’s hot wieners in Providence, however, draw praise. Credit Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A lot of people here say that Rhode Island suffers from being the smallest state in the country. Jimmy Saccoccio, manager of the Olneyville New York System, a popular diner, agrees.

“They say in Rhode Island, if you’re going to cheat on your husband or your wife, go out of state because Rhode Island is too small,” he said with a laugh.

Poor Little Rhody. Not only is it the smallest state, it is often a punch line. And in many state rankings, it comes out on top for the wrong things, like having the nation’s highest rate of unemployment.

Now comes yet another blow to the state’s fragile self-esteem. A Gallup poll found that of all 50 states, Rhode Island was the least appreciated by its own residents. Only 18 percent of Rhode Islanders said their state was the best place or one of the best places to live. Illinois did not fare much better — only 19 percent were proud of their state. But even Mississippi, a habitual laggard in standard-of-living metrics, earned higher marks in the Galluppoll, with 26 percent of its residents calling it the best state or one of the best.

These levels of dissatisfaction stood in sharp contrast to the satisfaction of residents in several states out West. Tied at the top were Montana and Alaska, where 77 percent of residents thought highly of their state.

Most of the top 10 states feature wide-open spaces and small populations; Rhode Island, by contrast, is one of the most densely packed. But that is cold comfort to Rhode Island, since two other small New England states — New Hampshire and Vermont — made the top 10.

So what ails Rhode Island?

Many people interviewed here on a recent soggy day pinned the blame on the state’s struggling economy. Manufacturing declined after the textile industry moved South, and the jewelry industry has been outstripped by foreign competitors. And the state has been slow to rebound from the recession.

“They can’t get jobs,” said Mario Forte, 85, who is long retired from the jewelry business. He was standing out of the rain in a storefront on Atwells Avenue in Federal Hill, Providence’s Italian neighborhood, which bustles with restaurants. “You give a man a job, he’s happy,” Mr. Forte said.

And just as often, people pointed to Rhode Island’s reputation for corruption.

 “The government is corrupt, and the poverty rate is high,” said Gary Balletto, 38, a former professional boxer who was eating lunch at Venda Ravioli.

They spoke not far from the site of an old pinball business that was the base of operations for a notorious New England crime family. The Mafia is much diminished now, and studies suggest that, at least as measured by convictions of public officials, Rhode Island is far less corrupt than many other states.

Nonetheless, the perception persists that Rhode Island, measuring just 48 miles from north to south and 37 from east to west, is overstuffed with miscreants and reprobates.

“Even in good times, Rhode Island has had a little bit of an inferiority complex, caused in part by being the smallest state and by having a history of political corruption,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island.

“People like to go back to George Washington calling it Rogue’s Island and Lincoln Steffens calling it a state for sale on the cheap,” he said. Steffens, the muckraker, wrote a devastating article in 1905 in which he detailed the graft and bribery here, starting with party bosses buying citizens’ votes and calling those payments “compensation for time lost in visiting the polls.”

More recently, the speaker of the House abruptly resigned in March under a still-unexplained cloud after federal and state agents raided his office. Other highlights include the time the sitting governor crawled into a Dumpster outside Walt’s Roast Beef in Cranston to retrieve an envelope containing a $10,000 bribe; his waitress had inadvertently tossed it out.

The name Vincent A. Cianci Jr., who is known as Buddy, often pops up in conversations about Rhode Island. A former mayor of Providence, he was forced to resign after a felony conviction for assault (he threatened a man with a burning log); he was later re-elected mayor and forced to resign a second time after another felony conviction.

In an interview, Mr. Cianci, 73, now a popular radio host and a potential candidate for mayor again this year, blew off the notion that Rhode Islanders were discouraged by the pervasive aura of corruption. “Corruption is everywhere,” he said. “We haven’t cornered the market.”

He attributed their dissatisfaction instead to high taxes, leaders who are “bean counters” instead of “risk-takers” and the state’s size, which makes everyone’s activities more noticeable.

“Here, everybody knows what’s going on, and every little nitty-gritty thing they do is under a microscope,” he said. “You could drop an atomic bomb on parts of Texas and no one would know.”

Rhode Island is heavily Democratic, heavily Roman Catholic and heavily unionized. Some say the state is beholden to its unions, as evinced by its generous pension system. But the high cost of government, said Robert D. Atkinson, the former executive director of the defunct Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, is not matched by a high quality of services.

For some politicians, the Gallup results are a call to arms; the governor’s race this year is shaping up in part as a contest over who can best pull the state out of its funk.

“Lifting the self-esteem of the state is absolutely something I need to address as governor,” said Mayor Angel Taveras of Providence, a Democrat running for governor.

Claiborne Pell IV, grandson of Senator Claiborne Pell and another Democrat candidate, said restoring faith in state government was “at the heart” of his campaign because without it, nothing else could get done.

Gina M. Raimondo, the state treasurer and also a Democrat running for governor, takes a white board to campaign events and asks voters to list why they believe in Rhode Island. It is her way of getting them to think about the state’s positive attributes.

“The malaise is driven by the economy and the lack of jobs,” she said. “Rhode Island needs a leader who has optimism for the future and who knows and believes we can be better.”

Despite the complaints, many of those interviewed said they liked living here and would never move. They love the easy access to the ocean. They are proud of Newport, an old-world moneyed coastal community where Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy were married in 1953.

And they are especially proud of their restaurants and their culinary quirks. The official state drink is coffee milk, a mixture of milk and coffee syrup. Rhode Islanders boast of their snail salads. They are devoted to their version of the hot dog, called, oddly enough, New York System hot wieners. They are served at Olneyville New York System, which was just named a 2014 James Beard Foundation American Classic.

Mr. Cianci, the former mayor, suggested that the 82 percent of residents who told Gallup that Rhode Island was not among the best states should spend a weekend in Newport, eat in a Providence restaurant or visit the Rhode Island School of Design.

“Then,” he said, “they should go to Pocatello, Idaho, and see what they can do there on a Saturday night.”