The Corn Dogs of Springfield: D'Arcy's, State Fair, Cozy Dog

There sure are a lot of corn dogs in Springfield. Yesterday I tagged along with Cathy2 who was a contestant in the State Fair's pie competition. We arrived well before pie time so the first order of business was finding a horseshoe. We decided to try D'Arcy's Pint, a cavernous new building across the street from a cornfield.



D'Arcy's is well known, if not universally loved, for horseshoes and they offer an impressive variety.



We decided on one basic and one innovative. Hamburger is their most popular horseshoe (the original from the Leland Hotel in the 1920s featured ham) but the horseshoe of the week, appropriately named the State Fair, was impossible to resist.



That's Texas toast, sliced steak, Italian sausage, fries and miniature corn dogs (one sliced, one on a stick) all flooded with cheese sauce. Not my favorite "sandwich" by a long shot but I'm happy to say I tried it.

The day was unbearably hot but I marched all over the fairgrounds, looking at prize-winning bales of hay, beautiful horses, pigs, and of course corn dogs. It was hard not to be struck by the sheer quantity on offer. The food stands mostly had different menus but many featured corn dogs.



I didn't try this behemoth and have no idea what's inside.

After the pie judging we headed off to Cozy Dog to sit and chat with the founder's son (he will be speaking in Chicago next month!) while sampling their famous corn-enrobed tubesteaks at his autographed table. A fine day.




D'Arcy's Pint
661 W Stanford Av
Springfield IL
217-492-8800

Illinois State Fair
August 10-19, 2007
Springfield IL

Cozy Dog
2935 S 6th St
Springfield IL
217-525-1992

Rene G, nice report. Those Cozy Dog fries look pretty good.

stevez wrote:Rene G, nice report. Those Cozy Dog fries look pretty good.

They are made from fresh potatoes, then fried twice. They were very good, though due to the high humidity quick to get a bit limp.

From talking to two life long Springfield residents, D'Arcy Pint may be where to get your horseshoe sandwich now. It still does not hold a candle to those from the past. Rene G and my obervation of D'Arcy's cheese sauce was the faint, faint taste of cheese. You really had to concentrate to taste any cheese. One of our new friends at Cozy Dog has the original recipe for the cheese sauce which had beer and sharp cheddar for a strong cheesy taste. Still they were all amused at the State Fair Horseshoe.

It was indeed a fine day, especially because we learned so many interesting things to share here over time.

Regards,

Rene G wrote:After the pie judging we headed off to Cozy Dog to sit and chat with the founder's son (he will be speaking in Chicago next month!) while sampling their famous corn-enrobed tubesteaks at his autographed table.

Many years ago, when I first got into the Barbecue biz, I got to know Buz Waldmire, Ed Waldmire's (the founder of the Cozy Dog) son, and visited him anytime we passed through town on our way to Kansas City.

When Walgreen's bought out the original location and built Buz a new shack just to the north of where the Walgreen's now sits, he invited all the locals and regulars to sign the table as a commemoration of the passing of the landmark spot. I was honored to be among those who were asked to sign (you can't see my inscription in that photo).

That table, by the way, was where the regulars all sat for hours on end drinking bottomless cups of coffee and scarfing down Cozy Dogs.

I don't get to the Cozy quite so much now that Buz's ex-wife got the place in the divorce settlement. I think Buz went back to teaching at a local high school and is quite happy. But it just doesn't seem right to me that she got his Dad's place. Oh well...

Also, Buz's brother Bob is a brilliant artist whose work focuses on Route 66 landmarks and natural wonders. They sell his postcards and posters at the Cozy Dog. The intricate detail and full, busy images are a delight to look at.

Buddy

HI,

I checked with Buz Waldmire before responding to you. Sue bought the restaurant from Buz. Both Buz and Sue retain the rights to the Cozy Dog name and products.

It was my observation Buz seemed happy as a clam sitting at the signature table. He would occasionally make requests of the staff, who followed through on everything. He jumped up a few times taking food trays to various tables. He spoke quite respectfully of Sue's management of the restaurant. Some of their children are now working full or part time at Cozy Dog, who may someday acquire the business. It's all in the family.

Regards,

I was surprised to see that Norb Andy's had closed. When I lived in Sprinfield back in the late 80's, folks always recommended their horseshoes.

While at the fair I noticed a couple of BBQ shacks had popped up around town (down south where 5th and 6th streets meet). Sadly I wasn't able to try any.

Here were the restaurants within walking distance of our motel in Springfield: Applebee’s, IHOP, Outback, Red Lobster, Panera, Long John Silver’s, Bob Evans, Jimmy John’s, Smokey Bones, Hooters, Cheddar’s, and Carlos O’Kelly’s.

In other words, at first glance you might think a visit to Springfield is a journey into deepest Generica. But in fact Springfield has a surprisingly healthy (well, in one sense of the term, anyway) local food culture, and given that it boasts several of the state’s major tourist attractions, the person who finds himself there anyway can certainly eat interestingly, if not exactly well, there.



The occasion was a history long weekend for ourselves and the kids. Within a couple of days we managed to see Lincoln’s log cabin days in the rustic, WPA-era reconstruction in New Salem, trace his life and presidency at the high tech, Disneyfied (but quite captivating) Abraham Lincoln Museum, see his tomb in the classically grandiose, Gilded Age memorial at Oak Ridge cemetery, and walk through his rather overdecorated Victorian home (as so often, it’s the most modest and homey historical site that gives you the real lump in the throat, as you think... that’s the desk where he sat and wrote his side of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, that’s the house he said goodbye to as he went off to become the Lincoln of history).



Oh, and we saw Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dana-Thomas House, an odd man out in an otherwise Lincolncentric weekend (though there is the connection of Lincoln Logs), but absolutely worth the tour for one of Wright’s most exquisite, Arts-and-Crafts-meets-Shinto-temple spiritual architecture experiences. And on the way back, we visited Cahokia, once the largest city in North America (this was about 1200 A.D.), and still an impressive mound of earth which manages to evoke, despite encroachment by modernity on every side, what a thriving mesoamerican village on the outskirts of East St. Louis might have been like.



But the mention of spiritual experiences naturally will bring to mind the fact that Springfield is the birthplace of the corn dog, so let me turn now to food. Things we ate in Springfield:

Gabatoni’s-- Saputo’s is the Italian place people usually talk about, and some place called Vic’s usually scores highest for pizza in local polls, but this also received high marks, so we gave it a try. It’s a perfect south-side Vito & Nick’s-type pizza place, undisturbed 60s-style Eyetalian decor,



very good cracker-crust thin pizza,



and waitstaff that treats you like you’ve been coming in since you were a kid. Part of the reason I suspect that they treat you that way is because they’re largely undiscovered by out of towners, so be among the first-- and treat ‘em nicely back.

300 E Laurel St
Springfield, IL 62703
(217) 522-0371

Mel-O-Cream-- Some months back I had an outstanding seasonal-local-donut experience at the Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance presentation on midwestern sweets; one of the talks was on Sweetwater Donuts in Kalamazoo, and the highlight by far of the assortment brought down for us to try was donut holes made with bits of real Michigan cherries. I had no expectation that Mel-O-Cream, which noted donutologist Vital Info long ago had ranked as merely a middling donut mini-chain, would offer an experience to rival that-- but then I saw peach donuts on offer, and grabbed the three they had as quickly as I could. Real peach chunks in season in cake donut batter-- maybe Mel-O-Cream only goes from good to great for a few short weeks each summer when these peach donuts are in season, but if you have a chance, this is a donut almost worth the drive on its own.

(Various locations, which Cathy2 indefatigably catalogued here. Note that they're open 6 to noon only.)



Cozy Dog-- Inventor of the corn dog, I agree that this center for Route 66 fandom could use a dog that didn’t, as JeffB observed, taste so much of liquid smoke and chemicals, but it’s still pretty fine anyway.





But as Vital Info noted, this is also a first-rate old school burger place, slapping fresh meat on the grill and cooking up fresh-cut fries; I took his advice and had the greasy all-meat chili on the burger and it was a first-rate dogwagon meal unchanged from 75 years ago.



2935 S 6th St
Springfield, IL 62703
(217) 525-1992
http://www.cozydogdrivein.com

Coney Island-- Speaking of chili from 75 years ago, this spot downtown has a great old “Since 1919” sign; the interior, alas, is redone, but the food seems unchanged, and here too a dog with all-meat chili and onions on it seemed like a perfectly preserved silent-movie-era meal.

219 S 5th St
Springfield, IL 62701
(217) 528-1193

Sgt. Pepper’s Cafe-- I have to admit that the “horseshoe,” Springfield’s local specialty consisting of meat of your choice on toast, covered in French fries and a sharp cheddar sauce (traditionally tinged with mustard), sounded like bad drunk food to me. I had planned to accidentally forget to try one, but a comedy of errors trying to find a place that was actually open for lunch on Sunday put us at this Beatle-themed place where nothing sounded all that great. So I decided, might as well try one. And you know what? It was horrifying. It was a nightmarish culinary clusterfark of glop, rapidly cooling and setting like epoxy on my plate faster than I could have shoveled it into an undiscerning, alcoholically insensate mouth. Really, the vilest thing I have had his year, I have more sense than that even when I’m drunk, and yet people were eating it in the cold light of day.



Oh, but you didn’t have it at D’Arcy’s Pint, you say, or whatever place you think has the good ones. I grant you that Sgt. Pepper’s may have been a bad one, but nothing about what I had suggests that a good one is even possible. And if it is, someone else will be the one to discover it, not me.

3141 Baker Dr
Springfield, IL 62703
(217) 525-5939

Hi,

Last year, Rene G and I sat at Buzz Waldmire's table at Cozy Dog with a local food writer. The really good horseshoe sandwiches seemed to be in the past from long or not so long ago shuttered restaurants.

Dining on Sundays is not easy when you are beyond Chicago. It is especially tough if you want to eat before people have left church. Once church obligations are over, then there are somewhat more choices.

Thank you for the trip report, it sounds like a good time.

Regards,

Actually, Gabatoni's has a pretty good Horseshoe Sandwich. We met a friend, a guy who goes by the internet name Dr. of BBQ over on Roadfood.com, at Gabatoni's last Christmas on our way home from Kansas City. The good Dr. has a Barbecue trailer just north of The Cozy Dog, on Sixth Street, right after you pass under the viaduct.

Anyway, he took us to Gabatoni's where we sampled the pizza and the Horseshoes, both of which were very satisfying. He apologized that the Horseshoe's at Gabatoni's weren't as good as at D'arcy's (which is closed on Sunday, the day we were traveling), but I scarfed mine down quite happily. I tried the hamburger version which was way better than it could have been.

When you have a creation like the Horseshoe, bringing together so many elements and topping it all off with cheese sauce, the temptation might be to cheap out on the individual ingredients, thinking that none of it will matter much once the whole thing comes together. Gabatoni's took a different tack, serving the sandwich with two excellent hand formed patties, made from fresh ground beef, and then char-grilled to perfection.

I'll grant you that it needed to be eaten fast before the sauce congealed, but I had no problem doing that, especially when the plate was passed around for all to grab a taste. if D'arcy's Horseshoe is better than the one I had at Gabatoni's, then I can hardly wait to make a return trip to Springfield and a stop in at D'arcy's

The pizzas were also very good, and as I recall, there was plenty left over that made the ride back north to Chicago.

I never heard of Sgt. Pepper's in Springfield, and I'm sorry you had a bad experience there. I think there are better Horseshoes to be had in Springfield. Hope you get the opportunity to find out.

Buddy

Yes, I saw Dr. of BBQ, but didn't smell him at lunchtime until it was too late. Believe me, if he'd been pumping out smoke on Sunday, we'd have been there. (We saw your sauce on the shelf at Cozy Dog, too.)

I'm just not a cheese on french fries kind of guy. I'm really not a melted cheese sauce kind of guy, period. The horseshoe, even in its most glorious incarnation, is just not the sandwich for me, I suspect.

Yeah, the Doc isn't open on Sundays anymore. He runs that stand all by himself from early in the morning until well after dark and he just decided that seven days a week was too much.

Too bad. Try to be in town one of the days he's open and stop by for some of his outstanding ribs or pulled pork. He's a helluva guy with a very generous nature. I've seen him give away more food in samples than he sells to some of his customers. Someone will pull up for a pork sandwich and while they're waiting, he'll say, "Here, try some of this," and hand them a fat sample of what ever new item he's working on that day in hopes they will come back the next time and order that. He is a man who truly loves his work!

By the way, the Dr. of BBQ is the same guy who introduced me to Saputo's. He is well known all over town, having been a local radio DJ and talk show host known as "One Eyed Jack" (he has a glass eye and a weird sense of humor) in his younger days. Jack has rubbed elbows with Springfield's "elite" (is there such a thing?) over the years; politicians, other restaurant owners, the wealthy and the poor alike, and is welcomed with open arms wherever he goes.

Buddy

Hi,

On Sunday, try a horseshoe at the Dublin Pub. They have a wonderful buffalo wing, white sauce, pony shoe with curly fries, buffalo sauce and ranch dressing on the side. (Honestly this restaurant is hit-or-miss but when the right line cook is working, it's excellent.)

It's really not the traditional Leland Hotel shoe but has lots of flavor.

At lunch, Maldaner's, Springfield's oldest and best restaurant, has an excellent traditional horseshoe.

Tim

The Dublin Pub
2413 S. MacArthur Ave
Springfield, IL 62704
(217) 793-6871

Maldaner's Restaurant
222 S. 6th St.
Springfield, IL 62701
(217) 522-4313

My wife - and now I - are big fans of Vose's corn dogs, which you can get at the State Fair. Here is a nice write up about Vose, his family, and operation in the SJR: http://www.sj-r.com/publications/x15913 ... -corn-dogs

I have a Cozy Dog and fries recently and liked them very much. The actual hot dog in the Cozy Dog reminded me of Oscar Meyer wieners (which isn't a good thing), but the corn crust was very good. The fries are amazing. Next visit we'll try the BBQ Dr.

Oh, but you didn’t have it at D’Arcy’s Pint, you say, or whatever place you think has the good ones. I grant you that Sgt. Pepper’s may have been a bad one, but nothing about what I had suggests that a good one is even possible.

Mike, I'm probably one of the few people from Springfield that wouldn't tell you to get a horseshoe from D'Arcy's. I truly dislike their horseshoes, largely because of their cheese sauce which I find to be too heavy and cloying by far. In fact, IMHO, they show little to no restraint whatsoever with anything they put on a plate, it's all just...too much. This link will take you to a pretty fair approximation of the original Leland Hotel's horseshoe recipe. Use hamburger patties, turkey, canadian bacon, whatever you'd like. I think if you tried it at home where you had more control over the consistency/flavor of the sauce, you might find that you actually enjoy the legendary Horseshoe. I'm glad you had Gabatoni's, though, they do have great pizza. Sgt. Pepper's I would not recommend under any circumstances, I've never found it to be anything but vile.

BrianD wrote:I was surprised to see that Norb Andy's had closed. When I lived in Springfield back in the late 80's, folks always recommended their horseshoes.

Norb Andy's was legendary. I'd go there for lunch with my fatherand see the Governor and various politicians regularly, enjoying a three or five or seven martini lunch along with a horseshoe. It was a great space, dim and mysterious, and I recall fondly both their horseshoes and the cherry coke cocktails (coke + a maraschino cherry & some juice).

Tim wrote:Hi,

On Sunday, try a horseshoe at the Dublin Pub. They have a wonderful buffalo wing, white sauce, pony shoe with curly fries, buffalo sauce and ranch dressing on the side. (Honestly this restaurant is hit-or-miss but when the right line cook is working, it's excellent.)

It's really not the traditional Leland Hotel shoe but has lots of flavor.

At lunch, Maldaner's, Springfield's oldest and best restaurant, has an excellent traditional horseshoe.

Tim

The Dublin Pub
2413 S. MacArthur Ave
Springfield, IL 62704
(217) 793-6871

Maldaner's Restaurant
222 S. 6th St.
Springfield, IL 62701
(217) 522-4313

The Dublin Pub is located where the original D'Arcy's was housed. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm very fond of the Dublin Pub owned chili parlor Joe's Chili (oddly spelled with one "l" rather than the traditional Springfield two "l's") next door that I recently mentioned in the main Springfield thread. I tend to look askance at non-traditional horseshoes, but I'll give it a shot. Maldaner's is a classic, albeit, a somewhat tired classic, but I don't recall ever having tried the Horseshoes there, I'll have to remedy that. We've always gone to Maldner's for a "continental" take on German food. I've had good luck at the Track Shack (although I haven't been in about a year) and, more recently, the Barrel Head, although the last 2 times I went there I was displeased with the cheese sauce. Still, the Barrel Head serves a fantastic burger (cooked to order) so it may be worth a stop if anyone is curious. They recently rebuilt after their original building was destroyed in the Great Tornado a couple of years ago, so it lacks charm, but the burgers are still very, very good. D&J Cafe is another option for the horseshoe and they are happy to substitute sausage gravy for the cheese should you have an aversion to cheese sauce. It's just a great little place for breakfast or a late lunch in general, nothing fancy, just well done diner food. Local Steak and Shakes are now offering horseshoes as well, although I have not been able to bring myself to actually sample one.

Cozy Dog-- Inventor of the corn dog, I agree that this center for Route 66 fandom could use a dog that didn’t, as JeffB observed, taste so much of liquid smoke and chemicals, but it’s still pretty fine anyway.

I'll always love the Cozy Dog, despite the move to cleaner, less charismatic environs. I agree, the hot dog they use is not especially choice, but I do enjoy the batter in which they are encased and still order them regularly when I'm in town. The fries and burgers are still quite good, as many others have noted. I had previously recommended the pork tenderloin sandwich there, but was surprised when Cathy2 reported that they had switched to a pre-fab frozen tenderloin. I was there recently and it's true, the house made tenderloin is no more. I am still hunting for a good pork tenderloin in Springfield that is on offer regularly. It is odd, as they used to be available everywhere, all the time.

Great report, I do wish I'd been able to make it down for the fair!

Joe's Chili Bowl
2401 S. Macarthur Blvd.
Springfield, IL 62704
217-793-0613

D&J Café
915 W Laurel St
Springfield IL
217-753-1708

The Barrel Head Pub
1577 Wabash Ave
Springfield, IL 62704
(217) 787-2102

ate at doctor of bbq on saturday - best bbq I can remember. the pulled pork was spectacular. the sausage was good. the ribs were very good - much meatier than you normally get with good que, but fantastic flavor. beans were great. I could see driving down to springfield just for that.

Darren72 wrote:My wife - and now I - are big fans of Vose's corn dogs, which you can get at the State Fair.

Vose's corn dogs are distinctive—darker and sweeter than most others. Probably all that sugar in the batter caramelizes during frying. Here's a picture from last year's Illinois State Fair.

Horseshoe sandwiches are being served at a bar in Bucktown called 6 Degrees. I've never been nor have I have I ever tried a Horseshoe sandwich, but I am curious as to how the sandwich at 6 Degrees compares to a true Springfield serving.

I had a shoe at 6 Degrees about a year ago. My recollection is that it was about as good as you'd get in Springfield (The ones in Springfield aren't culinary masterpieces). But a return trip is in order.

6 Degrees
1935 North Damen Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 904-8812
http://www.6degreesbucktown.com/

Darren72 wrote:I had a shoe at 6 Degrees about a year ago. My recollection is that it was about as good as you'd get in Springfield (The ones in Springfield aren't culinary masterpieces). But a return trip is in order.

6 Degrees
1935 North Damen Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 904-8812
http://www.6degreesbucktown.com/

I had a shoe at 6 Degrees with Darren72 about a year ago. The owner of 6 Degrees is a bonafide Springfieldian (as am I.) She clearly knows her way around a horseshoe - I found it very authentic.

rmtraut wrote:Horseshoe sandwiches are being served at a bar in Bucktown called 6 Degrees. I've never been nor have I have I ever tried a Horseshoe sandwich, but I am curious as to how the sandwich at 6 Degrees compares to a true Springfield serving.

Horseshoes are also being served at Chickie's Diner in Park Ridge. I think their version is pretty authentic, which is to say nothing to write home about.

Turkey Horseshoe @ Chickie's Diner


Chickie's Diner
920 Busse Highway
Park Ridge, IL 60068
847-823-1956

A new bar and grill opened in Springfield recently that does a mighty good horseshoe, Boulevard Tap and Grill (not the most web-savy name). It's in the location that used to house D'Arcy's Pint and then the Dublin Pub.* Boulevard has a nice beer list, a lot of tv screens, a huge pool area in the back, and most importantly, a very good shoe. I had a pot roast pony shoe and am looking forward to going back.

By the way, Stevez, that shoe does not look very good. Cheese sauce looks cheap and, most important, I don't see any meat.

Boulevard Tap and Grill‎
2413 South MacArthur Boulevard
Springfield, IL 62704
(217) 679-3293
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Boulevar ... 01?sk=info


*Dublin Pub now has two locations (one is a licensee of the other). The one that used to be on MacArthur is now on Wabash. The other is on Cook.
1975 Wabash Ave, Springfield
(217) 793-6871

107 W Cook St, Springfield
(217) 679-1775

HI,

D'ARcy's Pint closed?

Now for the better horseshoe, does this mean it has a better cheese sauce? Almost all the horseshoes fall way down on the cheese sauce. I know one person who now swears off horseshoes, it would be really great to go to one that is really good.

Is Boulevard Tap making their own sauce with real cheese? I'm there in a few weeks for the state fair.

Regards,

Cathy, sorry for causing confusion on this. No, D'Arcy's Pint has not closed. But it moved to a different location a while back. If you've been in the last five years or so, you've been to the current location. The current address is

D'Arcy's Pint
661 W Stanford Ave
Springfield, IL
217-492-8800
http://www.darcyspintonline.com/

The cheese sauce at Boulevard was good. My guess is that they make their own sauce, but I didn't ask (should have!)

I think there are a few things that make a good horseshoe: a good sauce. Bad sauce ruins the whole thing. Second, a good meat product. What I liked best about the Boulevard shoe was that the pot roast was cooked really well. I also like buffalo chicken shoes because I like the mixture of cheese and buffalo sauces (I can't believe I said that). Finally, bad fries are bad fries, but the fries are less essential than the other things.

Hi,

We have seen good meat prep and very lousy sauces. Let's face it, there is no attempt to even make a cheese sauce. Just heat up commercial cheese(ish) sauce, then pour it on.

I'm in Springfield on August 13th and maybe again soon after. I'm glad to give a Darren72 vetted horseshoe a shot. Thanks!

Regards,