Nu-Way Weiners: America's Second-Oldest Hot Dog Chain
Near Macon, Georgia
On February twenty-seventh, nineteen sixteen, a Greek immigrant named Jim Mallas opened a hot dog stand at two eighteen Cotton Avenue in downtown Macon. He had seen the hot dog craze in New York City after arriving through Ellis Island, spotted the crowds on Cherry Street, and noticed nobody was selling them. That single stand became Nu-Way Weiners, now one of America's oldest hot dog chains, opened the same year as Nathan's Famous in Coney Island.
The misspelling on the sign? A sign-maker got it wrong in the nineteen thirties and it stuck. The original Cotton Avenue location was destroyed by fire in March twenty fifteen, but eight Nu-Way locations still operate across central Georgia today, still serving those distinctive red hot dogs.
