I always look forward to attending The Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts, for different reasons. Whether it’s the live music, the performances, the artisans, or the children’s parade at the end of the show, the festival is always a crowd pleaser. Oh, and there’s plenty of great food to choose from, which leads me to… Moondoggies – a hot dog food trailer based in Buffalo that services the “Tri-City” area of Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.
But this is no ordinary trailer, and this is no ordinary hot dog. Moonoggies is the creation of Justin Keller and his mom, Vicki aka Moon Mama. The hot dogging adventure was born on the Mississippi in Southern Illinois (where Vicki was living), in the summer of 2017. At the time, there was a solar eclipse, and Justin decided that he wanted to sell hotdogs at the Moonstock Festival. Being from Wolcott, NY, he was a fan of Zweigle’s Famous White Hot Dogs (Rochester). So he bought 1000 dogs, grabbed a small grill, an umbrella, and a couple of coolers, and headed to the festival.
As the festival as drawing to a close, Justin had a number of hotdogs leftover, and decided to throw them into a pot of marinating onions. The rest, as they say, is history. The next customer to purchase a dog declared that it was the best hotdog that he had ever had.
From there, Justin attended the Du Quoin State Fair in Southern Illinois. It was there that he was told that the best way to attract customers – “fishing for customers” – was to use bacon, garlic, and onions, which was the next set of ingredients that Justin added to his marinade. He would go on to add tomatoes and peppers as well. This “marinade magic sauce” was sweet and tangy, and people loved it. The only problem was that the rest of the vendors all had fancy-schmancy food carts, and Justin only had his measly umbrella. That’s when his mom suggested that he build a gypsy wagon.
Eventually, he hooked up with the love of his life, Jessica “Jess” Joyce, who joined Justin on his hotdog-slinging adventures. It was Jess who put so much of the whimsical aesthetic flavor into the wagon, appropriately called The Moon Dog. It just so happened that Jess (from Buffalo) had grown up eating Zweigle’s Famous White Hot Dogs, which her mom cooked for her. So she was already a fan of the hotdog, which was now exclusively served marinated.
What eventually took the marinated hotdogs to the next level was the secret Moon Dog sauce, called Moon Juice. While the Moon Juice marinade is the central focus of all of their dishes, it’s the Moon Juice that has everybody talking.
When I asked Justin and Jess what makes the Zweigle’s Famous White Hot Dog such an integral part of the Moon Dog, they told me, “They can stand up to the marinade – they have the girth and the fortitude we were looking for in a wiener [laughing].”
“It takes me an hour and a half to make the marinade each time,” said Justin. “I hand cut the onions – everything is served fresh. It goes from hot to cold. The dog is hot (not spicy), then it’s got the cold kraut and cold Moon Juice. We put it on a Costanza sausage roll, with Weber’s mustard. People love it. We also marinate our burgers, and the loaded fries have marinade as well. The burgers are just as good as the dogs.”
The Moon Juice sauce has become so popular that Justin and Jess are in the process of bottling it for retail sales.
Aside from selling at an array of events and festivals in the region, they are anticipating attending the upcoming Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts. This is when/where they plan to “turn on” unsuspecting Buffalonians to their deliciously outrageous food concept that is taking the Tri-City area by storm.
“It’s our first time at the festival (the weekend of Saturday/Sunday, August 27 and 28) – we will be at the corner of Elmwood and Auburn,” said Justin, who is looking to further establish Moondoggies in the Buffalo market. “We’re looking to get into more festivals and events in Buffalo. We’re based in Buffalo, in the Old First Ward. Our slogan is The best wiener you ever had in your mouth… we even have a Moondoggies jingle (two verses) that Jess wrote in ten minutes as we were on our way home from The Gypsy Parlor one night. She comes from a musical family. It goes like this…”
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