kays65 wrote:I ate here last week and thought it was great. I wouldn't necessarily consider it a "hot dog spot" It had so many other things to choose from. I had the curried chicken salad which was wonderful. Hubby had the fire roasted chicken tender and said it was awesome. Like mhunter said it was really clean. That says alot about how the kitchen is kept. The prices were pretty reasonable too. I'll be trying it again when some friends are in town. Will write more after that.

I actually was considering trying this place until this comment appeared.
It is about two blocks from my office, and at times I have a taste for a decent hot dog.

When you find out that somebody is too cheap to advertise and wants to shill for the place here though, that is a bad sign. No way I will bother with the place now.

Well, I've been there a few times now and have yet to order a Hot Dog, I get swayed by the bacon and blue burger and it's firey goodness too often! Love it! No matter what people who haven't been there write!

mhunter wrote:Well, I've been there a few times now and have yet to order a Hot Dog, I get swayed by the bacon and blue burger and it's firey goodness too often! Love it! No matter what people who haven't been there write!

This is really interesting. Two people, each with their very first posts on this forum, decide to rave out this place.

For that reason, I just finished a decent lunch from Harry's and not from the new place.

Well, I'm busted, I have recently joined the new century of chat!

And BTW (catch on quick don't I?) the building Harry's is in is slated for demolition.....no more funky elephants.

mhunter wrote:Well, I'm busted, I have recently joined the new century of chat!

Here's a tip: Unless the place you are shilling for is just about to go out of business, first join the forum and talk about some other places. Give it a few weeks. Then, when you start raving about some hot dog place, you will have some credibility. Keep that in mind for next attempt at cheap advertising. Good shilling takes some real effort. Make it a challenge for those of us here to figure out if you have just fallen for a place, or if you are part of the ownership group.

One more hint: Add at least one thing about the place that you don't like. For instance, you might have wrote "I don't what the people were thinking with the curry. Unless you are in an Indian restaurant, never order the curry." Had you made a comment like that, people might actually be questioning your motives, rather than just chuckling at them.

I think LTH is safe giving this place a try - the OP has been here 2.5 years and has a decent amount of posts. Whether or not a shill or two jumped into this thread isn't that relevant to me - but should be monitored. Funny how easy it is to spot them sometimes.

I'd like to hear some more shout outs on this place from seasoned posters, I might give it a whirl later this week.

FWIW - I always thought Harry's was just OK.

Bster

Bster wrote:I think LTH is safe giving this place a try - the OP has been here 2.5 years and has a decent amount of posts. Whether or not a shill or two jumped into this thread isn't that relevant to me - but should be monitored. Funny how easy it is to spot them sometimes.

I'd like to hear some more shout outs on this place from seasoned posters, I might give it a whirl later this week.

FWIW - I always thought Harry's was just OK.

Bster

That's the irony of it.
Based on the first post (and the fact that my office is about two blocks away), I was actually going to give the place a try. I agree that the food at Harry's is just O.K. and if a good alternative was available, I definitely would try it out.

I've really got something against places that resort to shilling though. It detracts from the forum. As been discussed elsewhere, people with ownership interests comment here relatively often and when they identify themselves as such, I don't have a problem with it. Had the two posters (why do I suspect that it is really one person) written something like "We owners have stumbled on your forum. We wanted to let you know that although we sell hot dogs, we also sell a lot of other great food" I don't think anyone would have objected. It is the fact that they tried to hide it that is bothersome.

I went there about two weeks ago and thought it was okay for what it is. The dogs are expensive ($3.75 for regular, $3.95 for "jumbo" w/o fries), but the jumbo fully dressed Chicago style and charred and a decent-sized regular drink still came out to under six bucks, which is reasonable for downtown. considering the rent. You can't eat at Corner Bakery or Cosi for that. Regarding the shills, it is probably desperation. When I was in there at lunchtime, there was only a handful of people. It is in the basement where a Chinese restaurant used to be; you have to walk down stairs and then follow a circuitous path with various signs with arrows on the wall. It will be difficult to make it in that location, especially with numerous similar restaurants around. They did seem to have some interesting soups of the day which I may go back and try.

This thread went from useful to hostile too quickly, in my opinion. There is no clear evidence of any shilling (remember wrongly-accused Fleurdesel at the Pannekoeken Cafe! I've learned my own lesson). To say that people are both passionate and protective of their Chicago hot dogs is a grand understatement. Speaking of which, at the Wiener and Still Champion GNR award dinner on Sunday, we had a first-time poster who actually came straight to an event, assuming we were friendly enough to meet in person, that early in his posting history. I wouldn't want to see any of that intrepid spirit cut down by jumping on individuals with low post counts, no matter how brazen their endorsements might seem.

I stopped by Conran's yesterday on my way to early sushi further out on Randolph. Expensive, yes; sucks, no. The atmosphere is woeful and institutional because of the restrictions of the space, but the cooks are doing what they can for you, and I at least see no evidence of the metal bins full of saturated, colorless hamburger patties as at Fast Track (where, again, I do at least like the hot dogs). I'm not going to go back, but at least I poked my head in, and respect the right of any who need a hot dog fix very close to their workplace to go, and - gasp - even post about a fine experience they've had there.

But anyways, yea Conran's is closed indefinitely. The funding just wasn't there and the sales costs weren't adding up to the food cost as well as employee's salaries. We currently closed to try to stop the hemorrhaging as much as possible so that we could start anew, with a completely new breakfast menu-but as you all know now, that fell through. I was a cook there and I went to culinary school with all of the guys in the kitchen, you might have seen me there, I was the handsome brown guy that sometimes came out to give people their food. Anyways, the chef was a friend that lived in my dorm and I decided to help out, it seemed like an interesting opportunity and all signs pointed towards up, but as was the case with all restaurants, you need to give it time to see how it will do, and as such we didn't have the backing to do so for that extended period of time. It sucks, but hopefully there will be new and exciting ventures for Michael Conran and Company in the future. By the way, I'm out of a job now, so if any of you know any place that is hiring, that would be much appreciated haha

paniaguapo wrote:But anyways, yea Conran's is closed indefinitely. The funding just wasn't there and the sales costs weren't adding up to the food cost as well as employee's salaries. We currently closed to try to stop the hemorrhaging as much as possible so that we could start anew, with a completely new breakfast menu-but as you all know now, that fell through. I was a cook there and I went to culinary school with all of the guys in the kitchen, you might have seen me there, I was the handsome brown guy that sometimes came out to give people their food. Anyways, the chef was a friend that lived in my dorm and I decided to help out, it seemed like an interesting opportunity and all signs pointed towards up, but as was the case with all restaurants, you need to give it time to see how it will do, and as such we didn't have the backing to do so for that extended period of time. It sucks, but hopefully there will be new and exciting ventures for Michael Conran and Company in the future. By the way, I'm out of a job now, so if any of you know any place that is hiring, that would be much appreciated haha

Wow, was it even open a month? Hopefully the next venture includes someone that went to business school...

The "handsome brown guy?" I don't know where to begin.

Just to remind folks, Harry's grits are not just ok. Harry's grits are quite good. The other stuff, dogs to pizza puffs, I agree.