More Hot-Dog Memories
After my July 30 Recipe Swap column was published, I got a surprise call from June Hutchins Beshears.
The column was about the hot-dog slaw served years ago at the Dine In Car on Liberty Street and consisted of the reminisces of Ralph Tuttle, who used to work there in the 1950s and now lives in California.
The call was a surprise because Beshears’ father and husband both were co-owners of the Dine-In Car at different points in time.
I had no idea that the owners were still in town or still lving.
Beshears was able to provide even more memories about this popular restaurant that is gone but definitely not forgotten.
Beshears’ father, John Hutchins, was not the original owner and Beshears couldn’t remember who was. He and Sid Williams owned the Dine In Car from 1951 to 1965. Her husband, Rex Beshears, and Jimmy Weaver took it over in 1965 and ran it till it closed for good in 1986.
John Hutchins died in 1973 and Williams in 1976, Beshears said. She added that Jimmy Weaver is around somewhere, and her husband was around, too — sitting right next to her in fact.
Rex still keeps the Dine In Car’s old grill in an extra room in their house after all these years. June has a brick from when they tore the building down in the early 1990s.
June said that contrary to Ralph Tuttle’s recollection, the Dine In Car favored Crown Mayonnaise, which sadly is no longer available.
The Dine In Car was a local hangout, through and through.
“After the Bowman Gray races, they’d come in there in droves,” Beshears said.
The early crowd would actually come inside to eat for breakfast or lunch, in one of the four booths or on one of the 15 or so stools. The evening crowd was just about all curb service, though.
Beshears said they employed 17 carhops in the heyday, with five or six working at any one time.
Watching the planes at Smith Reynolds Airport across the street was one draw — though it had a downside. “When the planes took of and landed, they’d fly right over the Dine In Car and they’d rattle the building,” Beshears said.
She laughed about all the young folks who used the Dine In Car’s gravel lot as a makeout spot. Others just liked to hang out to shoot the breeze.
“The boys when they had dates they’d go back to the Dine in Car and crow about their dates,” Beshears said.
The Dine In Car thrived in a time before the rein of the chains. “The Dine In Car was around before we had McDonald’s, but places like that eventually did it in.“
All this talk about hot dogs got me hungry.
When I have the craving, here are some of the places in Winston-Salem I’m likely to go:
P.B.‘s Takeout on Hawthorne Road.
Kermit’s in Southside.
Pulliam’s in Orgburn Station.
I also like Skippy’s, downtown on Fourth Street, for an untraditional but impressive dog on a homemade pretzel bun.
(Larry Shoffner enjoys a hot dog at Kermit’s Hot Dog House in the 2005 photo above.)
