Vegan dog concessionaires see anything but super Sunday
The line for hot dogs on the Levi’s Stadium concourse snaked all the way past the next stand, beyond the restrooms and wrapped around the venue far enough to be situated above the concession stand for the $25 tenderloin sandwich and $16 Bay shrimp roll.
A few steps away though, sat the Super Bowl’s loneliest snack, with not a soul doing as much as even inquiring about it.
At $8 and in a modern arena where bottled water goes for just a dollar less, the vegan dog briefly looked like a bargain, at least until the faux-meat hot dog grabbed a reputation for being rubbery, chewy and tasting of warmed cardboard.
For the most part, the staff at the concession stand stood looking bored, especially the lady at the completely unnecessary ex- press checkout line.
Occasionally a potential customer would amble over, wrongly thinking he could get a real hot dog here and beat the line at the next stand.
Others soon realized that you could get beers under the “Vegan Dogs” sign without the punitive wait of other stands. Others just weren’t paying attention and recoiled at what was on offer when informed.
Abby Wambach, the recently retired U.S. soccer star, wan- dered by and, yep, she was eating a full-size, full-meat hot dog.
USA TODAY Sports, in one of those scientific studies that isn’t very scientific and barely qualifies as a study, observed 10 people go to the vegan dogs window over the space of 12 minutes.
Five of them ordered beer, three had strayed into the wrong line and another asked where the nearest restroom was. Only one bought a vegan dog.
“My wife is a vegan,” said Carolina Panthers fan Shawn Blewett, 39. “She can’t decide whether she wants to be vegetarian or vegan, and she wanted me to get it for her.
“It doesn’t look very good, though. Should I get her a frank just in case?”