Five Questions with Steve Ewing, Creator of the St. Louis Hot Dog

Meet Steve Ewing: Musician, Restaurateur, & Hot Dog Creator

Steve Ewing—musician, restaurateur and overall do-gooder—has been referred to as the “unofficial mayor of St. Louis.” His restaurant group, HUSTL Hospitality Group, a longtime US Foods customer, has provided more than $10,000 in free meals to food pantries and local social service organizations.

What’s your musical background?

“I am the lead singer of The Urge—we’ve been playing since the late ‘80s. The band is pretty popular here; we still tour and we’ll often be playing and vending hot dogs at the same time. Our Chesterfield location has a massive outdoor stage—we do live music quite a bit.”

Why hot dogs?

“As a touring musician, hot dogs are just something you can grab pretty easily. It all started with me wanting to sell food in places that were missing street food at night. I had the cart shipped to my home, unpacked it and strapped it on the back of a truck for shows. As soon as I got it (in 2008), everyone thought I was crazy, but I was hooked. I love the energy it created—and people loved our hot dogs. We opened our first brick-and-mortar location in 2011 and now we’re up to seven locations, including [Energizer Park].

What’s on the St. Louis dog you created?

“The St. Louis dog is an all-beef hot dog that we cold-smoke in-house with provolone cheese layered on the bun, grilled bell peppers, grilled onion, smoked pepper mustard and banana peppers. Three years ago, we actually got the mayor and the board of aldermen to sign off on what we created as the official St. Louis dog.”

People say you’ve created a nice place to work. How’s that?

“We approach food almost as if it was a rock band—our recipes are fun—and that energy carries over in the kitchen. We know how to have a great time while working hard.”

What’s your love/hate menu item?

“Our Stormtrooper hot dog with alfredo sauce that we make from scratch. It’s really time-consuming because we make it fresh throughout the day. It’s so good and people love it.”

BONUS QUESTION: What’s your favorite song to sing?

“From my band, it’s ‘Jump Right In’—it was a hit single in the late ‘90s. But I also love playing ‘Message in a Bottle’ by The Police.

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