Vegan Hot Dog Cart arrives with burgers and more inside Sly Fox Pub
After serving Orlando for a quarter-century, the legendary Vegan Hot Dog Cart has gone brick-andmortar. It’s now in softopen at its new location inside the Sly Fox Pub at 63 N. Orange Ave.
Downtown Orlando was a very different place in 1999, says Shaun Noonan, who was around 19 at the time he moved to the City Beautiful.
“I didn’t go to imbibe,” he says. “I’d go for vegan hot dogs.”
He and his friends would most often find it outside a punk rock head shop, says Noonan, where customers could buy band shirts, incense and the like.
“It was in the location where the Courtesy is now, operated by a guy who went by Tofu John,” he recalls. “He’d post-up out there with his dogs and we’d all grab a hot dog and then go around the block to Harold & Maude’s, which had tater tots and coffee and Scrabble.”
The cart would pass through several owners, including Kelly Shockley, who’d go on to found Ethos Vegan Kitchen, but Noonan had no idea that many moons later, he would become its torchbearer.
“It’s been a privilege,” says Noonan, the man behind an expanding vegan empire that includes Market on South and Dixie Dharma. He still uses the same Loma Linda brand the cart started with, but with in-house treatment that makes them the cart’s own.
“I treat all plant-based ‘meats,’ like people treat any other meats,” says Noonan. “It’s a raw product that needs seasoning. We do all that ourselves, giving it love that’s our own. It’s very important to me.”
This includes special marinades for the vegan brats, too, as well as the Impossible Burgers they’ve added to a menu that will continue to expand.
“We have burgers, cheeseburgers, tots, loaded tots,” says Noonan. “We’re doing our own battered onion rings, chili and fried pickles as we get our bearings down. There will be desserts at some point, too.”
Current hours are 4 p.m.2:45 a.m., Wednesday-Sunday, but plans to expand are in the works.
“The game plan is seven days a week, including lunch and brunch,” says Noonan, “so stay tuned to the Vegan Hot Dog Cart’s Instagram (instagram.com/theveganhotdogcart).
By the way, you can bring your family. The Sly Fox Pub is a licensed restaurant, says Noonan. “But I wouldn’t recommend that at 1:45 a.m.” The menu will be available on UberEats, as well, so customers can opt for delivery.
The Vegan Hot Dog Cart has been a staple for bands visiting Orlando on tour, says Noonan,
“People would play the Sapphire Supper Club and later The Social and they’d come across the street for a dog,” Noonan recalls.
The cart’s still around he notes, but will be limited to events.
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