Jimmy's Hot Dogs

The third stop on our hot dog tour was at Jimmy’s Hot Dogs located on 6^th Avenue South. This was another educational experience. We came to discover that Jimmy’s is one of the members of the Graphos Trilogy. I had known for years that Sneaky Pete’s was started by Pete Graphos and his brother Sam who now has Sam’s Super Sandwich in Homewood. We discovered that there is another brother…. Jimmy. Jimmy’s Hot Dogs remained a Sneaky Pete’s for many years but was eventually renamed “Jimmy’s Hot Dogs” Pete, Sam and Jimmy were all involved in the Sneaky Pete’s business years ago. After the name was franchised and sold both Sam and Jimmy remained in the business when Pete moved on. After our adventure trying to find Gus's downtown we asked and found out the Jimmy's that had been on 4th Avenue was totally different and unrelated.

Our visit to Jimmy’s broke some of my misconceptions. The first was décor; the walls in Jimmy’s dining room are covered with a rich mixture of Birmingham history, autographed sports pictures and three stooges pictures. This is definitely a change from looking at conduit, pipes and menus. Of course the area where one orders has the basic hot dog stand décor which has little more than a menu. Also of note is that Jimmy’s has a dining room. The larger hot dog stands that aren’t located in a cramped downtown space can have the luxury of a separate dining room.


Jimmy’s has a very full menu for a hot dog stand. It lists such delights as a Jimmy’s dog, chili dog, slaw dog, beacon cheese dog, polish dog and jumbo versions of all of these along with various burgers. We ordered what has become the usual for us, a hot dog and chili dog all the way with chips and a drink. The drinks at Jimmy’s are fountain drinks that are big. The hot dogs are good and the chili dogs have real chili on them. This was the first real chili dog we had encountered since starting the tour. The chili did indeed taste like chili and one could easily conceive of eating in a bowl with crackers. This day I also ventured out to buy a polish dog which Robert and I split. This was also good having a flavor that is a real switch from the usual hot dog. The polish dog is definitely worth the slightly higher price.

A place like Jimmy’s actually tempts me to camp out and review EVERY item on the menu. Of course we are on a mission (as the Blues Brothers would say, “a mission from God”) to check out the hot dog stands of Birmingham. I just keep finding that I would like to explore the menu at some of these places.

We are finding that hot dog stands are not predictable and often have more to offer than one would expect.