A Dream Recognized Through Challenge

By Alex Marshall, Owner of Harbor Haute Dogs

My love for hot dogs started back when my family was stationed in Chicago. I was four and my Mom and Dad took me to a hot dog stand for the first time. From then on, I always said I wanted to either be a “hot dogger” when I grew up, or a fighter pilot.

Years past, and we moved out to the Peninsula Northwest. There, the idea of a hot dog was an overcooked mystery meat tube that got little love at a BBQ. I made it my goal to teach my friends and neighbors what a real hot dog was. For my retirement I dreamed of manning my own hot dog cart.

Several years later I married my wife Megan and attended culinary school. I worked in Seattle for a bit, and eventually landed a job in Gig Harbor at an Italian restaurant. Years of cooking high end food never made me forget about my true love for hot dogs. About four years ago my wife and I were looking at hot dog carts just for fun and she said, “just get one, it’s your dream.” So, after searching and searching I found one that worked for my budget and style of hot dogs. After getting the cart, I had to find the best dogs and sausages and buns. My family were good sports as I fed them every hotdog I came across in my search for the best product.

 After about a year I felt ready, so I did a family and friends soft opening, turns out I have a lot of friends and family. It was an eye opener for what I was about to get into. About 200 people showed up and I was completely swamped. People waited forever for dogs and the wind blew away our tickets halfway through the party. Luckily my wife jumped in and took orders, and everyone loved the dogs. Even after the stressful day I knew this was what I wanted to do.

After that I did some smaller gigs and then got into a farmers’ market. We were always busy, and people gave us great reviews.

When Covid hit, I did not know what would happen to markets and events, and the fear of the unknown had me worried. As expected, everything closed, and my other small business of cooking classes went belly up. Luckily, a good friend of mine had a gas station and asked if I would come out and feed his customers for free as a way of saying thank you for supporting him during Covid.   

I jumped on the opportunity. I wanted to bring joy to people, and keep my dream alive. It was a blast seeing all the locals come out and supporting my friend and loving the hot dogs and we sold out in about two hours. The next day my friend called and informed me that his customers and the community kept asking him when I would be back.

 I started coming on my days off and serving some of my signature dogs as a way to keep myself motivated and to test out new hot dog combinations. Each time I came out we got busier and busier, and we started getting a following. We had regular customers and Sunday afternoons became a gathering for locals and families to come out and get great food at a great price.

 My wife and I realized we were quickly growing too busy for the two of us to handle, so we prayed for some help. At just the right time, one of my best friends, Guy Stroz, started coming to the cart to hang out and help when needed. I had asked this friend a few years earlier if working with me is something he would want to do, but at the time it was not right for him. After a few weeks of Guy hanging out and helping I asked again, finally it was the right time and we decided to go into business together. Since then, we have been busier than ever, and have come out with some crazy combinations.

Through this process we have also had the blessing of working with some amazing small businesses. Nostalgia House Bakery provides all of our buns and sells out daily when we are working with them.

We feel honored to have found this success through Covid and bring work to other small businesses as well. We finally made the decision to do this full-time starting the first of the new year in 2022. So far, we have been getting busier and busier. Covid marked a huge challenge for me and my family in many ways, but it also opened the door for me to carry out my dream full time. I am looking forward to the future of this business and getting to feed so many wonderful people.