Vinny Navarro has parked his stainless steel cart under a beach umbrella at the corner of Main and Ervay streets in downtown Dallas. A grin brightens his suntanned, bearded face, and his Chicago-style Vienna Beef hot dogs and Polish sausages are hopping off his stand.
BEN TORRES/Special Contributor
With music and a carnival barkerlike voice, Vinny Navarro keeps his hot dog customers entertained.Working to the groove of an oldies station on his boom box, he's in "Uncle Vinny" mode, a carnival barker greeting passers-by and customers from offices and construction sites with a "How ya doin'?"
Vinny relishes moments like these, when, despite the economy, he's got a steady stream of customers. And, despite setbacks, each day brings him a step closer to fulfilling his sister's dream of building a hot dog business downtown.
Photos by BEN TORRES/Special Contributor
Vinny Navarro shakes seasoning on a hot dog at his cart on Main Street in downtown Dallas. After a feud with a neighboring restaurant, the city told him he had to move his cart, but he's not giving up his business without a fight.But if he's learned anything about this work, he says, it's this: "It looks easy - but it's not." Balky equipment, relentless inspectors and bitter feuds with restaurant owners complicate a job that requires long hours on the street.
Vinny, 48, doesn't shirk hard work. Growing up in Lawton, Okla., he mowed grass, threw newspapers and worked odd jobs. As an adult, he's chased roofing jobs and construction work across the country. He'd help his sister, Maria Williams, sell hot dogs during events or on weekend nights in Deep Ellum. About a year ago, they decided to try to make a go of it selling hot dogs every day downtown.
But stuff happens. A cart breaks down and Vinny needs a day or two to repair it. A thunderstorm hammers the recent Earth Day festival at Pegasus Plaza, sending customers fleeing. It's always something.
On this afternoon, Vinny's smile vanishes faster than a parking space at the State Fair. A city health inspector hovers by his cart. The inspector appears - unannounced - with irritating frequency.
A city official says the inspectors are responding to complaints but won't say from whom. Vinny suspects Porta di Roma, the Italian restaurant on the same corner as his cart. "They're trying to make life hard for me," Vinny says.
Restaurant feud
The inspector carries a clipboard. He slides behind Vinny's cart to check the propane tanks and the miniature sink, and to see if he's got hand sanitizer. The inspector stops in front of the Igloo cooler filled with ice and cans of soda that Vinny sells. The inspector tells Vinny the ice chest belongs on the cart, because nothing he sells can sit on the ground.
Vinny sighs. "Come back around in a few minutes and it'll be on there," he says.
"I don't have no idea what's going on," he mutters to himself. "I'm doing everything in the world correct."
Vinny's feud with the restaurant kicked off in December after his sister acquired a city permit for the Main and Ervay location. (In addition to a vending license, the city requires vendors to purchase a location permit for a particular corner.)
Maria and Vinny started peddling their hot dogs at Main and Ervay on Dec. 6, the day of the Neiman Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade. But three months later, on Vinny's birthday, one of the restaurant's managers had seen enough. "The man threatened me ... if I don't get off his block," Vinny says.
Demi Beshiri, an owner at Porta di Roma, denies that. But he doesn't deny that he wants Vinny to vanish from his tiny corner of Dallas. "This is not New York," he says. "You want to see somebody standing in front of your house selling something?"
Beshiri says he has contacted Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt, whose 14th district includes most of downtown. He wants the city to order Vinny and his cart to relocate.
"The problem is his customers are almost all - 90 percent are homeless," Beshiri says. "If he could move a little bit down, we have no problem at all. We respect his business." Taxes figure into the feud, too. "We pay taxes, and we deserve for somebody not to be there," he says.
But doesn't Vinny also pay taxes? he's asked.
"He pay 10 bucks," Beshiri says. "We pay much more."
Expenses add up
Vinny and Maria's expenses are not trivial. The space they lease for their commissary, where they store their carts and food, comes to $1,000 a month in rent and utilities. Annual city fees come to $400. And there's a monthly $100 fee for each location permit. A ticket from a city inspector can run up to $500 per violation. Then you add in the cost of hot dogs, buns, condiments and other expenses - including the fire insurance policy required by Dallas Fire-Rescue.
Maria, 50, has big dreams. She wants to put three or four more hot dog carts downtown. She'd also like to expand to Fort Worth. At $2 to $3 per dog, one cart can gross $200 a day or more, Maria says. That's about $1,000 a week before expenses. Multiply that times four carts? Maybe six?
Vinny is working like a dog to help his sister. His days often start before 7 a.m., when he arrives at the commissary in Garland. He washes the steel pans and, if needed, chops onions and tomatoes. Maria arrives around 8 a.m. to load the cart, which hitches to her Isuzu Rodeo. During the day, Maria works on paperwork or picks up supplies and then retrieves Vinny, who sometimes stays out as late as 2 or 3 a.m., to sell hot dogs to the nightclub crowd.
The stress takes its toll. They argue about everything - including whether Vinny should move from the corner of Ervay and Main. Maria thinks staying is not worth the hassle.
Vinny doesn't feel like moving. For years, he lived out of a trailer, moving from one job to another. He and his hot dog cart are sticking to this corner, and nobody's going to push him around.
Too many complaints
But then, in early May, the city makes the decision for him.
Chauncy Williams, sanitarian supervisor, says he's received too many complaints - though he won't say from whom. Vinny and Maria can still operate on Main Street at Pegasus Plaza. Maria says it's just as well to avoid a confrontation with the owners of the Italian restaurant.
But Vinny's angry. He's up against a bad economy, fickle weather and turf fights. Now it feels like the city's against him, too.
He'll move his cart if he must, but he's not giving up the hot dog business - at least not without a fight.
Why? His sister has a dream, and he promised he'd help her.
"I want to be a man of my word," Vinny says. "I think this is my purpose."
