Youz Guys Dog
312 S. Kalamazoo MallI wasn’t planning on eating out when I went for a walk on my lunch break the other day. I was actually heading towards City Centre Market to get my afternoon Pepsis (yes, unfortunately, that plural is intentional).
I decided to just kind of go for a walk first. I had been cooped up in the office all morning and I really didn’t have much going on that time so I headed away from City Centre figuring I would just kind of do a loop around The Mall then grabbing my pops before heading back to the office.
When I got towards South Street, I could see people sitting outside near the walkup window next to the MLive office. I realized there was a hot dog stand there now and I keep forgetting to walk down there and get lunch. Today was going to be that day.
Youz Guys Dogz is pretty simple. It’s in the walk up window that was last Kelvin & Co’s second attempt at having a downtown presence. The window is between the door to Peregrine Plaza and the Mlive office on the corner of South Kalamazoo Mall and South Street.
Hot dogs. That’s your only option at Youz Guys Dogz. The menu options range from the simple hot dog to gourmet masterpieces to some plant based options.
This is probably the point in the blog where I tell you I don’t like hot dogs. It’s not a surprise if you’ve read the blog for a while. My problem with hots dogs really isn’t the hot dog itself. Growing up in the 80’s, the only thing you put on a hot dog was ketchup. I hate ketchup. A plain hot dog isn’t really all that good either so I pretty much grew up despising hot dogs. I would eat corn dogs…actually, I really loved corn dogs. I just never ate hot dogs.
That avoidance of hot dogs has followed me in to adulthood. Being from Chicago, that makes me really weird but just like ketchup, I don’t like tomatoes so what’s the point in a Chicago Dog?
This is the one time I will openly admit I like a Detroit regional food over a Chicago one. Putting that thin chili sauce and mustard on a hot dog actually makes it really tasty.
I ordered two hot dogs on this day. I got the aforementioned chili dog and The South Street Dog which was really a whole lot more than a hot dog.
I ate the chili dog first. It’s apparently not a true Coney according to an interview the owner did with Mlive. Hot dog is a “all-beef, dirty water hot dog” topped with chili, mustard, and raw white onion. This is a pretty solid chili dog that I could have eaten two or three of. There are options to add cheese and bacon to dress it up a little more if chili dog isn’t enough.
The South Street Dog was something else. It’s the same hot dog as the chili dog but it’s topped with Mac & Cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce. As he was handing it out the window, the owner of the shop asked if I wanted a fork. I said yes but I was determined to eat this like a hot dog when I sat down at one of the tables outside of the Mlive office.
There was a lot of Mac & Cheese on the dog and it was a really good, cheesy mac & cheese. I would order this just on it’s own as a side. The bacon on top was super crispy and worked like a delicious crust on the mac. I somehow was able to pick this monstrosity up with my hands and not make a total mess of myself. I know I saw I “don’t like hot dogs,” but this is a hot dog that I will go back for more than once. Hopefully it stays on the menu.
The cost for my two hot dogs was $11 because the South Street Dog was more expensive that the other hot dogs on the menu.
A hot dog stand like this is a great use of this walk up window. It’s basically like having a permanent hot do cart. The owner is one of the original owners of Youz Guys Sausage Co so I was hoping they’d have some sausage on the menu but since they didn’t, I got the dogs and I was not disappointed there were no sausages on the menu after the first bite.
SW Michigan Dining 
To quote the late, great Anthony Bourdain: “If you put ketchup on your dog I will fucking kill you.”
Slightly less seriously, your food phobias confuse me. You say you don’t like ketchup or tomatoes, yet you scarf down pizza like it’s going out of style. What do you think is the main ingredient in that red stuff you find between the crust and the cheese? (Hint: not ketchup.)
Have a nice day and keep the fast food reports coming! :-}
Right? The hotdog thing is even more confusing because I love corn dogs. I hate mashed potatoes but love fries. I’ll eat tomatoes in a salsa but won’t eat them as slices on my burger.
My parents were very much those who tried to force things I didn’t like down my throat so I assume most of my weird food things are more psychological than anything.