Six Corners Chamber, Ald. Gardiner honor Stan’s Hot Dog Cart, which operated for 28 years near Sears 

by BRIAN NADIG

Stan’s hot dog cart which operated near the former Sears store at Irving Road and Cicero Avenue for 28 years starting in 1955 is believed to be responsible for the Chicago tradition of sprinkling celery salt on a hot dog, and the owner’s son and tradition were celebrated at a June 20 ceremony sponsored by the Six Corners Chamber of Commerce. 

When he was 9 years old, Wayne Kurzeja was helping his father Stan with the push cart, and he was given money to go buy salt at Hillman’s, a grocery store that was once in the basement of Sears. 

Kurzeja explains that the salt used at the cart was in a box, where holes were punched so it could be a makeshift salt shaker, but when the box and its contents got wet, it was no longer usable as a shaker.

So at the store Kurzeja spent an extra nickel on a nice container with salt that would not have the moisture issue. However, it was celery salt and his dad was not impressed.

He tried returning it but the store refused because the cap had been removed from the container. 

“It took 1 1/2 months to get rid of all the celery salt,” Kurzeja said. 

However, a short time later a customer says, “load it up with celery salt” and “my dad gives me a dirty look and said, ‘you started something.’”

Kurzeja said that he did not realize until about 20 years later how popular celery salt was. He saw descriptions of various types of hot dogs at an airport eatery, and the “Chicago dog” included celery salt.

Kurzeja said that he has not heard other stories about the rise of celery salt on hot dogs and assumes his chance purchase as a child may have started the fad. 

Kurzeja said the cart was built by his grandfather, and his dad started the business after he got laid off from the Ford Motor Company in 1955. His dad saw his neighbor with a hot dog cart, and the neighbor agreed to give Stan tips about the business as along as Stan agreed to push his cart along a different route. 

The neighbor gave at least one important tip: don’t offer ketchup as a condiment, and Kurzeja said that it put a different twist on the belief ketchup is unacceptable on a hot dog.

“Ketchup has sugar. You’re going to have ants everywhere,” the neighbor warned, according to Kurzeja.

Six Corners became the home for Stan’s cart after the family headed to the area to buy a bicycle and saw the large number of people walking to and from Sears, which at the time was considered the busiest Sears in the country, Kurzeja said.

Celebrities such as Nate King Cole and Connie Stevens bought hot dogs from the cart. Stevens gave a $20 bill and said “keep the change,” said Kurzeja, who often helped his father when he was not in school and who later became a lawyer.

The Six Corners Chamber, who possess the cart and displays it at special events, and Alderman James Gardiner (45th) presented a plaque to Kurzeja during a ceremony on the top floor of the new Six Corners Lofts, an apartment complex that is located in a portion of the former Sears store. Several years ago Novak Construction purchased the building and recently completed a retrofitting of the former department store, which was built in the late 1930s.

“For 28 years beginning in April of 1955 Stanley B. Kurzeja operated a hot dog push cart on this site (the Irving Park Road entrance to the Sears & Roebuck store parking lot). It is believed that the Chicago custom of sprinkling celery salt on hot dogs first began at this hot dog cart on this very location,” the plaque states.

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