Teens Own, Operate Pikesville's Only Hot Dog Stand: Weiners A La Cart

Park School graduates Alec Ring and Casey Goldman could be taking it easy this summer.

The 18-year-olds are talented and intelligent, have been accepted to good colleges, and have a tight group of friends to hang out with from their small, private day school.

But for the second year in a row, they will spend their days doing business as Weiners A La Cart—hawking hotdogs, chips, candy and cold drinks from their hotdog cart on wheels, set up on an access road to the Baltimore Beltway.

For Goldman and Ring, who both like being in business for themselves, this is a fun summer.

"We set our own hours. It's totally ours," said Ring, who will attend Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, this fall. "And that's a lot of fun."

Goldman will attend Elon University in Elon, NC, where he will study business administration. "I've always wanted to be in business," he said. "It's in my blood."

So, throughout the summer, from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, Ring and Goldman own and operate Pikesville's sole hotdog stand. It's set up along Brooks Robinson Drive, an access road to I-695, located between Park Heights Avenue and Stevenson Road.

And their county-licensed business is successful. Most days Goldman and Ring sell about 40 hotdogs, as well as chips, cookies, cooled candy bars and cold drinks.

During special event days—Saturdays, when they work at events such as baseball or lacrosse games—they've sold as many as 80 hotdogs.

Ring and Goldman are proud of their product—boiled, kosher, all-beef dogs with toppings including ketchup, mustard, relish, onions and more. "They are the best," Goldman said Monday during the partners' first week on the job.

Their house special is two hotdogs, chips or cookies for $5.75 with a soda. Add a Gatorade, and you'll pay $6.25.

Each day, the teens set up their small, stainless-steel cart, topped with a blue and red umbrella, along the berm of Brooks Robinson. It's a place where many drivers leave their vehicles parked during the day or overnight.

Customers arrive, usually motorists coming off of I-695, in box trucks, cars, vans or SUVs.

They pull onto either berm, and amble over to the stand to pick up a quick lunch.

"We chose this area because there's nothing else around here," Ring said. "There are not too many restaurants in the area and there's a lot of traffic on the road. The biggest thing for [finding] customers is that we get drive-by traffic."

On Monday, the Weiners A La Cart partners marked the first time they've served a customer driving an 18-wheeler.

Tradition in Business

Goldman and Ring are the third set of partners—all from Park School—to own the hotdog cart.

It's a business tradition, started several summers ago by other members of the Park School baseball team, said Ring, who was also a member of the team.

The business is passed down like this: When the owners head to college, they then sell the cart to younger members of the team who are in their junior and senior years at Park.

"We bought this together to be our own boss," said Ring.

Actually, Ring bought the stand in the summer of 2010, before Goldman bought into the business, Goldman said.

Both teens are headed to promising college careers after graduating from the private day school in Pikesville. This isn't their first gig enjoying hard work. Historically, they're no slackers.

Ring used to scoop ice cream at the now-defunct Scoops that was located on Reisterstown Road in the Owings Mills and Reisterstown area.

Goldman, the son of Howard and Abbey Goldman of Pikesville, worked as a busboy at restaurant, as a camp counselor for , and as an office assistant for a relative.

Each said he would like to find a career in business.

But Ring, who was a reporter for the school newspaper, said he also likes math and hasn't decided on a major. He said he wants to play baseball at Dartmouth, where he will take a shot at walking onto the team.

Ring is the son of Nancy and Mark Ring of Owings Mills—Nancy Ring is a native of Pikesville, and Mark Ring is a native of Randallstown.

Goldman said he wants to go into business management someday.

He plans to play club basketball and join a fraternity, and possibly minor in psychology.

Daniel Hoffman, also a Park School graduate, said he's been a frequent visitor to the cart since Goldman and Ring took it over last summer. Often, he'll go for lunch and hang out for a little while.

He began stopping by because "it was convenient for me and cheap enough to afford," the camp counselor said, noting that "the dogs are delicious. They are probably the only hotdog stand I've come across that uses the all-beef kosher dog."

Hoffman, who is headed to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, this fall, said his friends' access-road venue "is a nice place to spend summer days."

Correction: The original article stated the wrong name for Stevenson Road.