Results tagged “hotdogvendors”

Swooping in like a regular Mister Monopoly riding in on his hot dog cart (or was it a wheelbarrow?), vendor Dan Rossi has come to the rescue of fellow frank seller Pasang Sherpa after Sherpa was evicted from his high-priced spot outside the Met. Yesterday news broke that Sherpa was $300,000 behind on the $600K+ in annual rent he was supposed to be paying the city to sling dogs outside the Upper East Side museum. That prompted Rossi, who is able to set up his stand without paying rent due to an exception for veterans like him, to invite Sherpa to join his edible empire. When asked about his former rival turned subordinate, the winner of the wiener wars told the News, "He's gonna work for me now. Nobody's gonna touch him now without talking to me...The guy was crying. They pushed him out." Rossi also called for the Parks Department to crack down on unlicensed, "black market" vendors nearby saying, "I sell water for $2 and the others sell it for $1. If I charged $10 a hot dog maybe I could compete."

Hot dog vendor Pasang Sherpa made headlines a few months back for his big six-figure bids to guarantee lucrative space slinging franks outside the Metropolitan Museum, paying out $643,000 annually to the Parks Department for his spots outside the Met. At the time, he said that he didn't want to pay the city his big rent bills because he contended that nearby construction was having too negative of an impact on his business. Now after following through on his threat to hold off rent, the city has responded by evicting him. A Parks Department spokesman says Sherpa had fallen $310,000 behind in rent. Sherpa told the News that he was "going crazy" and didn't know what to do or where to go. Even more lost though were some Rhode Island tourists outside the Upper East Side museum, one of whom told the paper, "We don't know the area or where else to eat but here. There's no other place to eat around here." When Sherpa's original beef was reported in January, the Post said that another nearby vendor on 5th Avenue was set up and operating without permission or paying anything because of "a regulation that lets veterans like him bypass the bidding process."

Times are tough even for the lowly hot dog man. Vendors who operate at some of the most expensive locations in Brooklyn are reporting a precipitous drop in earnings, which they blame on the brown-baggers trying to save lunch money during the recession. Timothaos Ayad, who pays $48,000 a year in rent to the city set up his cart outside Brooklyn Supreme Court, says he's suffered a 50% drop in business since August, mainly because potential customers like Jenny Guerra are tightening the belt. Spotted by the Daily News refusing to buy her son a $1.75 pretzel, Guerra explains, "I feel bad [Ayad] still has to pay the same rent... But not bad enough." Over in Park Slope, where Tarek Elhashash pays $47,250 to operate two hot dog carts at Prospect Park, business is down 30%. He tells the News, "The same customer who used to come to me and spend $10 on two hot dogs and two drinks and an ice cream, now they get one ice cream and they split it." Guys like Joey Chestnut really need to start patronize these vendors before New Yorkers' convenient access to offal is history.