Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990                   TAG: 9005160156
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ED SHAMY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE'S KING OF HOT DOGS DOESN'T WANT A QUEEN

The titanic tube steak struggle pits the reigning king of dogs - the Roanoke Weiner Stand - against an upstart queen.

Just a few hundred feet from the weiner stand, which boasts itself "The Hot Dog King," a new business opens late this week or early next. The Hot Dog Queen will peddle - you guessed it - hot dogs from its storefront opposite Fire Station No. 1.

All of which leaves Gus Pappas with a bad aftertaste, and even scholars with brains soft as fresh buns will understand why.

"I knew it was going to be there," Pappas said Tuesday. "But I didn't know the name."

Then he called his lawyer.

Gus Pappas has a lot at stake. The Roanoke Weiner Stand (the king) has stood, usually tall, on the City Market since 1916. In Roanoke, a tender shoot of a city, 74 years loom as an eternity. As the Duke of Dogdom, Pappas' job is to preserve the integrity of the institution.

Part of that task includes crushing any opposition that surfaces, like a bobbing frankfurter in a pot of boiling water, within the kingdom. The idea here isn't to gently nudge aside fledgling would-be sausageurs.

The idea is to slice and dice royal hot dog impostors into a quivering pile of so many piggies-in-a-blanket.

"It ain't the competition. I had a guy two inches from me and he went out, selling just hot dogs," said Pappas. The king takes no prisoners.

It's the name. It's the logo, too. Roanoke Weiner Stand uses a crown. Hot Dog Queen, just two blocks away, will use a crown, too.

Malik Hasan is the entrepreneur behind the upstart queen dogs. He runs the Capital Restaurant on Market Street. He has ordered up a bunch of Hot Dog Queen hats, shirts and aprons, emblazoned with the crown emblem. He has a neon sign.

People already have asked him if he's affiliated with the hot dog king down the street.

"I tell them no. But I'll be cheaper," says Hasan, the up-and-coming weiner prince.

"All the people from banks and the government buildings walk right past here to go to Hot Dog King or to the market. I can catch them before they get there," he says.

Hasan also can catch railroad workers, if Norfolk Southern ever builds its office across Church Street.

Hasan grins coyly when you ask if his new venture is calculated to play on the Hot Dog King's success.

"It's just a nice name," says Hasan, the queen.

"He's leaning on somebody else's reputation," counters Pappas, the king. "We gotta notify the public that it's not the Roanoke Weiner Stand. He's gonna do pretty well for a while - until people see his quality ain't the same."

Of course, the king may not have the patience to let the experiment run its course.

"If it's not legal, let him say it in front of the judge," says Pappas. In other words, the king shoves the queen into the alligator-infested moat and hoists the drawbridge.

"It's legal," says Hasan. "I already registered the name."