About Superdawg's pickled green tomatoes

Happy 75th birthday, Superdawg!

Hello, everyone!

Hope you didn’t miss us too much. Davida and I had a killer time in Portland, where we managed to eat a little bit of everything, see as many people as we could, and take in as much fresh air as our lungs could possibly hold. If you’d be interested in a writeup of what we ate, I’d be happy to do one sometime, just let me know. I wasn’t sure how much curiosity there’d be in regards to a Chicago-centric food newsletter. And thank you all for your recommendations the other week.

Today’s newsletter is a slightly different format than usual, because I’m catching up on a week’s worth of lost work, but this one’s fun nonetheless.

This Tuesday marks Superdawg’s 75th anniversary in business, so I figured today would be as good a time as any to delve into one of my favorite things about the hot dog drive-in: its famous pickled green tomatoes.

Superdawg is one of my favorite hot dog stands in Chicago. It’s special for so many reasons, like the fact that it’s one of the last drive-ins (if not the actual last one) in the city, that the hot dog itself (they firmly call it a “Superdawg”) is a custom one made for the business, and for the giant hot dog figures, Maurie and Flaurie, that sit on top of the building to greet you. It’s also family owned, which is also very special.

But one of my absolute favorite things about Superdawg is that you receive a signature item with every main item on the menu, which is a wedge of pickled green tomato. They’re irresistible. I could eat an entire mop bucket full of them. The tomatoes are always crisp, seasoned well, and are super refreshing. As far as I know, these pickled green tomatoes are also wholly unique to Superdawg; no other hot dog stand in Chicago serves them.

A funny thing I’ve noticed is that nobody’s ever written about the green tomatoes. So I sent over a flurry of questions over to Superdawg to learn more about them, how they came about, and whether or not everyone’s a fan.

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What is your name and what do you do at Superdawg?

Lisa Drucker; current co-owner and daughter of the founders, Maurie & Flaurie Berman.

The pickled green tomato is one of my favorite parts of ordering a Superdawg. What’s the story behind the green tomato?

My dad, Maurie Berman, was keen to have his business stand out from the many other hot dog stands popping up across Chicago as the GIs returned home from war. A Superdawg is unique by its nature since it's made by a private manufacturer to our proprietary recipe. While the Superdawg is dressed with traditional Chicago-style condiments--mustard, relish, onion, pickle, and sport peppers--my dad swapped the regular red tomato for pickled green ones to make it just a little bit different.

How long have you been serving a green tomato with your orders?

Since 1948! We've made very few changes to our menu or our processes in the last 75 years.

Does everyone like them?

They're not for everyone. They really have a cult following: The people who like them LOVE them, and the people who don't, don't.

Can people order tomatoes to take home? Are there retailers that sell them, or a similar product in case people are looking for them?

I don't know of a retailer in this area who sells them direct to consumers...We've been known to occasionally sell them by the gallon on a special request.

Are they automatically served with everything?

A Superdawg with everything comes with a pickled green tomato. It's also served as a garnish for a few of our other sandwiches, like the grilled cheese and Superfish. It's always paired with the pickle--if you get a Superdawg no pickle, then you don't get the tomato, either. And if you fall in the camp of people who don't like them, just let us know and we'll leave it off! Better to save it for the tomato superfans.

How many tomatoes do you sell in a day/year? It must be a LOT of tomatoes.

We sell hundreds of thousands of Superdawgs in a year, not to mention the other sandwiches it garnishes, so it's safe to say we sell hundreds of thousands of tomatoes each year also.

What type of tomato are they? Where does someone even get green tomatoes year-round?

They're just called "green tomatoes," and then they're pickled, which makes them "pickled green tomatoes." Our supplier knows that we use them year round so he uses growers that have them available throughout all four seasons.

I’m assuming you don’t make the tomatoes on your own, because that would be a LOT of tomatoes to make. Is the supplier behind the green tomatoes a secret?

As all of our ingredients and recipes are proprietary, the same holds true for our pickled green tomato supplier.

Do you have to slice the tomatoes on your own?

YES! The pickled green tomatoes come whole and we cut them into wedges so that they fit comfortably in the Superdawg box.

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Photo credit: Superdawg

After I received the answers to my questions, Superdawg sent me a photo of the legend who cuts most of the green tomatoes at the Chicago location.

Meet Jose Suarez. It’s only fitting that we all recognize an unsung Chicago hero. While we sit in the comfort of our cars eating our tomatoes, this is the man who’s likely hand-sliced them for you.

If you’d like to celebrate Superdawg’s 75th anniversary with them, there’ll be a small formal ceremony at the Chicago location (the one on Devon and Milwaukee) on Tuesday, May 9th at 2 p.m. Alderman Samantha Nugent will be coming to present an honorary street sign, and there’ll be a ceremonial cake cutting as well. Superdawg will also be giving away gift cards to customers throughout the rest of May, so be sure to stop by if you want a chance to score one.

Happy birthday, Superdawg. I’ll raise a Superdawg in your honor.

Superdawg (two locations, Chicago and Wheeling)
6363 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60646
(773) 763-0660

Hours (Chicago location):
Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. – 1 a.m.
Friday through Saturday 11 a.m. – 2 a.m.

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So there you have it, that’s the skinny on the pickled green tomatoes. This one’s particularly fun, so I encourage you to share the newsletter every way you can, via social media, link sharing, or by old-fashioned email forwarding:

And of course, don’t forget to upgrade your subscription for the full Party Cut experience. Every other edition of the newsletter is behind a paywall, and I promise it’s not some cash grab, I just need your support to keep this thing going, that’s all.

It’s important to note that today’s would ordinarily be for paid subscribers, but since Superdawg is a local institution and everyone deserves to know more about those tomatoes, I wanted to make it sharable.

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Okay, everyone, have a delicious week. I love you lots, and I’ll hop into some of your inboxes next week.