CLEVELAND, Ohio — Hot dog carts have been mainstays on the corners of downtown Cleveland for as long as many of us can remember. It’s not just Cleveland – the mobile food stands have become a part of the fabric of most streets in major U.S. cities.
But outside of the typical options of chopped onions and brown mustard on a foil-wrapped dog or Italian sausage, many of them offer basic options for a quick lunch. Glizzys, a colorful hot dog cart in a parking lot on West 130th Street, has transformed what Greater Clevelanders think of as an on-the-go hot dog.
“You can go to every hot dog cart and get the same thing,” owner Rudy Kovach told cleveland.com.
He and fiancée Laurisa Raimondo started Glizzys after the COVID-19 pandemic. Their painting and house rehabilitation business was detrimentally impacted by the shutdown, so they thought about the idea of an essential business. Kovach thought of a hot dog cart – he could always be open, be his own boss and didn’t need a ton of capital to get started.
Also during the pandemic, Kovach was playing a lot of video games. While playing online in a game called “Fortnite,” his character was dressed up in a hot dog “skin,” or costume in the game’s terms. A fellow player commented that he loved his “glizzy” skin, and Kovach, who hadn’t heard the slang term for a hot dog, thought it’d be a great name for the business.
Kovach tried to find a cheap cart for sale but wasn’t having any luck. He ended up finding blueprints online and building the cart in his dad’s backyard in 2021. To make it stand out, he fitted the front of the cart with a massive cartoon-style hot dog with “GLIZZYS” written on it.
Kovach spent about two months building the cart and 10 months to nail down inspections and permits. Finally, he landed at his location at 4628 W. 130th Street in the parking lot.
“I didn’t want to be downtown because there was too much competition,” Kovach explained.
Aside from not being located in downtown Cleveland, Glizzys offers extraordinary menu options. For its proteins, Glizzys serves hot dogs, Polish boys, Italian sausage, hot Italian sausage and spicy franks. They’ll wrap a hot dog in bacon for $1 per slice.
From there, the toppings only get more extreme. Several types of sauce, from multiple flavors of Cleveland ketchup to the Glizzy sauce (similar to a spicy mayo) are favorites. Nacho cheese sauce, chili, real bacon, sauerkraut, cotija cheese, cooked onions, jalapenos, corn, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust – the list of toppings feels endless.
Even the standard ingredients at Glizzys are treated like a trade secret. Kovach won’t tell anyone the secret to his cooked onions that would be delicious on anything. The couple also aren’t quick to share where they source the meat, since it’s part of the mystery.
“I’ll tell you where I get my pop – Sam’s Club,” Kovach joked
During an average four-hour shift with decent customer traffic, the couple can personally serve 300 different loaded hot dogs. They spend the other half of the workday preparing ingredients.
“I don’t know why we are the only cart in Cleveland to have different toppings,” Kovach said. It takes a lot of work – three hours a day to prep everything. Cheetos don’t crush themselves, onions don’t cut themselves.
The Flamin’ Hot Elote dog is the best-selling combination. It’s a dog topped with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust, corn, mayo, cilantro, real bacon crumbles and chili powder for a spicy yet balanced flavor in every messy bite.
Another favorite is Dougie’s Bacon-Wrapped Glizzy, which is topped with diced jalapenos, shredded cheddar, Glizzy sauce, cilantro and chili powder. Kovach named it after his father, Doug Kovach, who watched him build the cart but died before the business officially opened. The last picture Rudy took with his father was of them painting the giant hot dog on the front of the original cart.
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Glizzys loves to give back to its customers. It has hosted a free hot dog day and offers a punch-card loyalty program where customers get a free Glizzy on their sixth visit. For its first anniversary, Kovach raffled off video game systems, free hot dogs for life and other prizes to customers who stopped by to celebrate.
The customer response to Glizzys has been monumental. The crew doesn’t spend money on over-the-top marketing efforts – just social media and word of mouth.
“Our followers really go hard for us,” Raimondo said.
Social media has been huge for Glizzys. The Instagram page, with more than 15,000 followers, has several videos with more than a million views. Several popular local and national social media influencers have featured the business on their pages. The visually appealing shots of the loaded hot dogs and the colorful cart are gold for social media content, and the Glizzys owners have seen the impact.
Outside of the typical noon to 4 p.m. shift on weekdays, Glizzys has appeared at several events in Northeast Ohio from MGK Day to Cleveland Pride. Kovach suggests that folks interested in booking Glizzys for future events reach out via social media.
Kovach is working to get a second location for a new cart on the East Side of town because he knows the idea is good enough to grow. He has his eyes set on a brick-and-mortar Glizzys restaurant soon.
“Everyone that comes here, they do tell us, ‘You can’t find anything like this anywhere else,’” Kovach recalled.
Despite living and breathing hot dogs for more than a year since Glizzys started, Kovach and Raimondo don’t get sick of eating their own food. Personally, Kovach’s go-to order is the Flamin’ Hot Elote dog with added chili and nacho cheese.
“There are so many different combinations you can’t get tired of it,” Raimondo said.
Alex Darus writes about food, dining and drinking for Cleveland.com, check out her latest posts here. You can reach her with story ideas at adarus@cleveland.com. Follow her on Instagram @alex_darus.
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