Get a taste of Chicago hot dogs and Italian beef at this Fayetteville food stand

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Veteran-owned Fayetteville food stand Dogslingers, which husband-and-wife duo Jen and Mike Adams started about three years ago, has recently generated a lot of buzz on the Fayetteville Foodies Facebook page.

From their spot in the parking lot at 2801 Raeford Road, Dogslingers serves hot dogs, sausages and sandwiches.

The meats are sourced from Vienna Beef, a Chicago manufacturer that supplies most of the independent food carts in the Windy City.

Vienna Beef products are a nostalgic taste of home for many Chicago natives, Mike Adams said.

Recently, a customer was moved by the taste of a Chicago-style hot dog, which is loaded with yellow mustard, sport peppers, tomato slices, a pickle spear, green relish, chopped onion and celery salt, Jen Adams said.

“He took one bite, and he couldn’t speak,” she said.

Dogslingers’ most popular menu item, however, may be the Italian beef sandwich. I was especially interested to try it because I recently watched almost all of Hulu’s “The Bear,” a TV show that follows a young chef from the fine dining world as he returns to his hometown of Chicago to run his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop.

While the Chicago sandwich is similar to a French dip or a Philly cheesesteak, make no mistake, Italian beef is its own thing.

At Dogslingers, a quarter pound of sliced Italian beef is served on a French roll with your choice of giardiniera or pepperoncini for $9. The whole sandwich gets a quick dip in the beef gravy. If soggy bread isn’t your thing, however, you can ask for gravy on the side. Add a blend of mozzarella and provolone cheese for an extra 50 cents.

I liked the contrast of the thinly shaved savory meat with the tart, pickled vegetables in the giardiniera. With each bite, the bread soaked in gravy lent the sandwich a satisfying richness.

For dessert of sorts, I ate the off-menu peanut butter and jelly hot dog. The Adams said they are still experimenting with it and are considering adding a crunchy topping like Cap’n Crunch cereal or Lay’s potato chips.

The soft potato bun and beef hot dog make for a better bite than your average hot dog. Paired with the nostalgic flavors of peanut butter and jelly, I think the whole thing is a home run. I mean, I was completely full from the Italian beef sandwich, but downed the whole dog anyway. If that’s not a testimony to its tastiness, I don’t know what is.

I’ll have to come back to try the pastrami sandwich, served on rye bread with mustard and sauerkraut, which Mike Adams said is nearly as popular as the Italian beef. Of course, I’ll have to grab a Chicago dog, too.

See you there, foodies!

Happy eating,

Taylor

Taylor Shook writes about food, dining and business for The Fayetteville Observer. She can be reached at tshook@gannett.com, on Twitter, or Facebook. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Dogslingers food stand in Fayetteville serves Chicago's Vienna Beef