Detroit-style coney dog

The Detroit-style coney dog is a hot dog dish that has become one of the most recognizable culinary symbols of Detroit, Michigan. In Michigan, a coney is a food — specifically a hot dog smothered in chili, then topped with mustard and chopped onions. It is a symbol of the city, just as much as the Model T or Motown music. Rooted in the immigrant experience of early twentieth-century Detroit, the dish traces its story through Greek and Macedonian newcomers who arrived during the city's automotive boom, adapted the flavors of their homelands to American street food, and built an enduring restaurant culture that persists today. The two downtown establishments most associated with the coney dog — American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island — have stood side by side on West Lafayette Boulevard for nearly a century and remain the subject of one of Detroit's most spirited culinary rivalries.

Origins and immigrant heritage

The coney dog was invented by early twentieth-century immigrants from Greece and the region of Macedonia to the United States. "Virtually all" Coney Island variations were developed, apparently independently, by groups of European immigrants in the early 1900s, many fleeing the Balkan Wars, who entered the US through Ellis Island in New York City. Family stories of the development of the dishes often included anecdotes about visits to nearby Coney Island. The origin of the style is somewhat murky: there were parallel developments in New York, Michigan, Ohio, and elsewhere around the United States, especially where there were concentrations of immigrants from the Balkans.

After immigrating from Greece in 1903, Constantine "Gust" Keros opened a hot dog cart in Detroit in 1910. He topped them with saltsa kima, a spiced Greek ground beef sauce, and called them Coney Dogs, inspired by the hot dogs he had encountered in Coney Island after he traveled to New York through Ellis Island. As the auto industry grew, so did the demand for more Coney Dogs, and the cart turned into American Coney Island in 1917.

In the early 1900s, Greek immigrants came to the United States in droves. A global economic crisis in 1893 and wars in Europe led almost a sixth of the Greek population to emigrate, mainly to Egypt and the United States. Detroit proved a magnet for this wave of migration. Due to the influx of Greek immigrants at the time and a booming auto industry — Detroit's population quadrupled between 1900 and 1920 — the Keros brothers were in the right place at the right time to feed the growing blue-collar workforce that called Detroit home.

As Greek people arrived in Detroit, they were directed to find the Keros family for employment, making the coney trade a tool of economic empowerment for local Greeks, who became so numerous that a section of Detroit picked up the name Greektown. Historically, many Greek and Macedonian immigrants operated Coney Islands, or restaurants serving Detroit coney dogs. By 1975, many Albanians began operating them as well.

The name itself carries its own ambiguity. No one is sure if the coney dog even originated in Coney Island or if Greek immigrants passing through simply borrowed the name. What is clear is that the dish evolved in Detroit into something entirely its own.

Composition and preparation

The Coney Island developed in Michigan is a natural-casing beef or beef and pork European-style Vienna sausage of German origin, topped with a beef heart-based sauce, one or two stripes of yellow mustard, and diced or chopped onions. The beanless sauce — often called "coney sauce" or "coney chili" — is what most sharply distinguishes the Detroit-style dog from other regional hot dog preparations.

The dish is defined by its signature Detroit-style coney chili sauce — a rich, savory, beanless meat sauce that coats a snappy hot dog with bold flavor. Unlike traditional chili, Detroit coney chili sauce is finely textured and spiced to enhance the hot dog without overpowering it. A true coney uses made-in-Michigan products such as Dearborn Sausage wieners.

The bun is an equally important component. In Michigan, one bun that is hearty enough to stand up to the coney toppings is the Coney Island Steamer, which was developed by another family-owned business: Metropolitan Baking Company. The Coney Island steamer bun is the company's "iconic flagship item on the bun and roll line," produced using a sponge dough method that yields a unique flavor and a light, fluffier texture. The factory produces over 25 million coney buns each year.

Detroit's coney culture also carries strict informal rules about toppings. No ketchup goes on a coney dog; the ketchup is only there for the fries. The proper way to eat one is by hand: as Grace Keros of American Coney Island has put it, "you know a good coney by how many napkins you use."

American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island

The two establishments that most define the Detroit coney experience occupy adjacent storefronts on West Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Detroit, and their intertwined history mirrors the city's own immigrant story.

In 1917, Gust Keros, a Greek immigrant, opened American Coney Island on West Lafayette Street in downtown Detroit. A few years later, in 1924, he brought his brother William to Detroit to help. When a storefront became available next door to American Coney Island, William grabbed at the opportunity to open his own shop, Lafayette Coney Island. Both restaurants have stayed put side by side on Lafayette Street for the better part of a hundred years.

A family rift caused the brothers to split, which led to side-by-side coney operations and a long-lasting restaurant rivalry. That rivalry has since taken on a life of its own in Detroit civic culture, with residents declaring allegiance to one establishment or the other with the same fervor reserved for sports teams.

The chili recipes, key to the coney dog, differ: American makes its own chili, which is said to be spicier, while Lafayette's is described as beefier, made from a family recipe. American Coney Island continues to be owned by the third-generation Keros family, but Lafayette is no longer family-held.

The nephews of Bill and Gust Keros went on to start the Kerby's Koney Island chain of restaurants, still owned by the Keros family. As a family-owned business, the owners hired their cousins, Pete and Leo Stassinopoulos, who would go on to found Leo's Coney Island.

Detroit-style versus other Michigan styles

While Detroit's version of the coney dog is the most prominent, Michigan is home to several distinct regional styles, each with its own loyal following.

The Detroit style — the most well-known — features a beef hot dog in a steamed bun, topped with beanless coney chili, yellow mustard, and diced onions, served at iconic spots like Lafayette and American Coney Island.

The Flint style features a drier, meatier topping made from ground beef heart and finely crumbled beef. Koegel's hot dogs are commonly used, and the sauce has a more textured, almost sausage-like consistency. The Jackson style is similar to Flint but with a smoother, more chili-like sauce, often described as a mix between Flint's meatiness and Detroit's saucier version.

The earliest documented coney restaurant in Michigan predates American Coney Island. George Todoroff, a Macedonian immigrant, started the Jackson Coney Island in 1914. This 24-hour restaurant was located next to the Jackson Train Station on Michigan Avenue and became popular enough that it led to the creation of Todoroff Foods. The longest continuously operated Coney Island in the same location is in Kalamazoo, which has been open since 1915.

The origin of Detroit's coney Island hot dogs goes back more than 100 years, thanks to Greek immigrants who ventured first to Coney Island, New York, sampled hot dogs there, came to Detroit, and started selling them. Yet it was Detroit that gave the dish its most durable identity and broadest cultural footprint.

Cultural significance and media presence

The coney hot dog is to Detroit what deep dish pizza is to Chicago or bagels and lox are to New York City. Beyond the restaurants themselves, the coney dog has come to represent the working-class identity of the city and the immigrant communities that built it.

Coney Island history now includes what has been called "Coney Sprawl" — when some Detroiters headed to the suburbs, they brought their coneys right along with them. There are hundreds of Coney Island restaurants in Michigan; some of the larger Detroit area chains are Leo's and National. Greek immigrants established the Coney chains Kerby's Koney Island, Leo's Coney Island, and National Coney Island during the 1960s and early 1970s, and all three chains sell some Greek food items alongside coney dogs.

The term "Coneys" can be used to refer to both the coney dog and the Coney Island restaurants that serve them. Metro Detroit's Coney Island restaurants are typically Greek-American-owned places that serve American diner and breakfast foods but can also serve Greek salads, gyros, lemon-rice soup, kebobs, saganaki, pita-wrapped sandwiches, and more.

The dispute between American and Lafayette Coney Island has been featured on several food television shows, including Food Wars and Man v. Food. The rivalry between the two Coney Island spots in Detroit isn't just some local secret; it has caught the attention of national media, including The Today Show, Food Wars, and Man v. Food, to name a few.

As Joe Grimm, author of Coney Detroit, has observed, food critics look down on Detroit's signature food because they think it is not sophisticated enough — "it makes us look like what we are, a town where men and women work for a living." That working-class association is precisely what has made the coney dog so enduring. Detroit food historian James Schmidt noted at the 2018 National Fair Food Summit that "Detroit is synonymous with the Coney Dog: you simply cannot have one without the other."

In more recent years, the coney's reach has extended into new forms and venues. In Detroit's Brush Park neighborhood, CMO (Chili Mustard and Onions) offers a coney in which the sauce and everything else on the menu is plant-based. In 2018, Pete LaCombe, his wife Shellee, and their daughter Darla launched CMO, which remains the only all-vegan coney spot in Detroit.

The Detroit-style coney dog stands today as more than a regional food specialty. It is a document of immigration history, industrial labor, and civic pride — a dish that tells the story of Detroit itself.