KING OF THE CART
Longtime Hamilton hot dog vendor, with family history in the business, retires,
In the spring of1984, Paul Reardon threw a little party. Just one thing on the menu — hot dogs.
Paul had his guests try several kinds. Soloway’s from Toronto. Springer’s from Hamilton. Link’s from Dundas, which was crowned the party favourite. It was served in a golden egg bun.
Taste-tests complete — and downtown Hamilton’s first licence for a hot-dog-cart in his back pocket — Paul was ready to go.
Business boomed. Reardon had to hire people to keep up. His No. 1 producer was young Howie ‘Hotdog’ Sporbeck, who moved 125 a day.
This sidewalk success did not go unnoticed. By the summer of 1986, there was a full-fledged wienie war, fought on pricing, size and condiments.
“Down the street at Reardon’s they’ve got 11 toppings,” said the guy running a new stand in front of Christopher’s restaurant back then. “That’s crazy.” Kresge’s got in on the action. So did the Super Slice Pizza guy, selling foot-longs that he boiled and then popped in his big oven.
“And who’s left from those days?” Paul Reardon asks now. “I’m the last one standing.”
But his reign ends soon. He’s on duty at Gore Park until Labour Day, then hangs up the tongs. “I always figured I’d retire at 70,” he says, and that birthday looms.
One way or the other, the Reardons have been selling meat downtown since 1912. It began with a stall at Hamilton Market, then shops on York Street. And for some 40 years, they ran the butcher/deli at King William and Hughson. Before Paul, it was his father, remembered with a meat-stacked-high sandwich called Jack’s Old Style.
Seven years ago, Paul was told his lease would not be renewed. In an agonizing decision, he closed the shop. He figured it was just too late in life to relocate. He still worked — the fish department at Sobeys in Ancaster, and cutting meat at the Metro in Westdale.
And it turned out not to be the end of selling meat downtown. Because at that same time, the annual summer-long Downtown Promenade event was born on Gore Park. And they asked Paul to be part of it.
So he wheeled over his genuine stainless-steel Tom Ferguson-model hot-dog cart — the one he bought back at the beginning for $4,500 — and carried on.
Paul has always known that street meat must be served with personality. He makes eye contact, talks to every customer. It’s easy for him. He likes people and they like him.
“I have all kinds of customers,” he says. “Street people too. They panhandle, then they come see me. I treat them with the same respect as a judge. The only time I move them along is when they smell. And they call me Mr. Reardon.”
It’s hot on duty, over that BBQ, under that sun. “I can stand the heat,” Reardon says. “I can’t stand the cold.” So from now on, he’ll be spending as many months as possible in Negril, Jamaica. He and wife Karen have been going for years. They volunteer in the schools there.
And on the beach, when he’s not reading detective novels, Reardon talks to locals who hustle for a living.
There’s Johnny the cannabis guy. Myrna, who sells sunset cruises on a catamaran. Norm, the Jamaican patty guy.
“He said to me, ‘Paul, what do you do back home?’ I said, ‘I sell hot dogs on the street.’ He shook my hand and said, ‘You are one of us.’ ”
The plan is that daughter Katie will do duty on the cart at Gore Park next summer.
“She worked in the store,” Paul says. “She can relate to the customers. She’ll keep the Reardon story going.
“That makes me feel good.”