Source: http://www.hot-dog.org/ht/d/sp/i/38579/pid/38579

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Excerpt: Hot Dogs have long been associated with sports –– particulary baseball.

According to a national poll conducted June 11-15, 2008, by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council:

Hot Dogs once again dominated fans’ favorite stadium fare.  Sixty-three percent of fans listed hot dogs as the one ballpark food they could not live without.

Eighty-eight percent of those polled said they have eaten a hot dog at a sporting event in the past year, or will eat one at a sporting event this year. 

Source: http://www.hot-dog.org/ht/d/sp/i/39126/pid/39126

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Excerpt:

Hot dog sales were up 2 percent in 2008, despite the economic downturn in almost every industry.

Darren Tristano: Consumers are trading down. Rather than going to, let's say, casual dining like an Applebees and paying at the $12-$13 level, they're shifting down to limited service.

Darren Tristano is an executive vice president at Technomic Incorporated, a food industry research firm.

He says hotdog stands are set to capitalize on food trends -- they're cheap, the food is fresh, customizable, portable, and he says, Chicago hot dogs taste really good.

All of which makes them a strong contender for a great recession meal.

Source: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/06/mm_hotdog/

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Excerpt:

And our food vending cart business has actually seen strong demand. You can get into a business that is relatively inexpensive to start — as little as $3,000 for a cart.

Everybody can picture, back in the Depression, Apple Annie standing on the street and selling her apples. In a way, that might be an extension of what’s happening today. The food vending cart offers someone the opportunity to go out and be entrepreneurial and make a living. So for us, the hot-dog cart might become for us the symbol of this current recession.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/nyregion/22small.html?partner=VERIZON%26ei=5118

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Excerpt:

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I wrote about how a growing number of small-town Americans are taking up the century-old, big-city trend of hot-dog vending. Sales of hot-dog carts have skyrocketed in the last year, say manufacturers and distributors.

Buyers are opting to sell wieners because they’re sold precooked and tend to undergo less scrutiny from state and city health departments than many other foods. “The vendor is only warming them to temperature,” says Joel Goetz, owner of American Dream Hot Dog Carts Inc., a cart manufacturer in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2009/04/09/how-to-start-your-own-hot-dog-cart-business/