The most famous hot dog in America is quite possibly Nathan's Famous, born on Coney Island, NYC in 1916. In the last century, Nathan's has gone from a small boardwalk hot dog stand to a supermarket staple and restaurant chain offering an array of treats to millions of Americans, and it all started with a young Polish immigrant.

A struggling immigrant, Nathan Handwerker saved his money by subsisting on hot dogs from his job and sleeping on the floor of the place for a year. After meeting the waitress he would later marry, Ida Greenwald, they took $300 they’d saved, opened a hot dog stand, and killed the competition by selling dogs at half the price of their rival.

In a marketing ploy to convince customers to buy his cheap hot dogs, Handwerker also hired men in white coats to come to his stand and eat. People thought the hot dogs must be okay because “doctors” ate them, which meant the gimmick worked, and by the time of the Great Depression, Nathan's was renowned all over the country.