WYOMING, Mich. — Gringo Dog’s, a popular Grand Rapids hot dog cart, planned a soft opening for its first drive-thru restaurant on Memorial Day, but the launch was delayed due to technical issues.
Owner Roger Bouwman arrived Monday morning to discover their new drive-thru electronic menu screens had malfunctioned.
“We came in this morning; we found when we turned on the menu screen that we were using, it had overheated and burned the screen,” Bouwman said.
The opening of “The Doghouse” had to be pushed back several hours. This was just the latest setback for the business.
“It’s frustrating. I wanted to open a couple of weeks ago, but we had issues with the hood vent and things like that. So, we had to get that repaired last minute,” Bouwman said.
Despite the challenges, Bouwman remained positive, noting that this experience was still better than when he launched his hot dog cart business in the middle of winter in 2017.
“I guess I sold my first hot dog in January. Didn’t go well; it was cold. Wasn’t prepared for that at all,” he recalled.
The popularity of Gringo Dog’s cart prompted Bouwman to seek a permanent location.
“I’ve always liked the idea of doing a drive-through restaurant, the fact that there’s not really a hot dog place that is that does just hot dogs,” he said.
Bouwman attributes his success to offering a unique product: a locally made, all-beef hot dog with a skin casing that provides a distinctive snap when bitten into.
“That’s totally made a difference. Now people will walk across town to get it, even if there’s another hot dog cart by them, because there’s a difference between a ballpark Frank and what we serve,” Bouwman said.
The official grand opening for Gringo Dog’s Doghouse is June 1 and Bouwman still plans to continue operating his cart at its usual location in front of Van Andel Arena on Friday and Saturday nights.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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