Travel 50 miles for a dog and fries?

Despite the stereotype of overcrowding, traffic jams and overall bedlam, there are parts of western New Jersey where you could swear nobody lives. It's most surprising when one of those traffic-clogged retail-zoo-of-a-highways shrinks to a two-lane back road to nowhere. U.S. 46 is one of them, which I discovered only a few years ago. Its westernmost leg in Warren County rambles through small towns where there are more falling-down houses than there are occupied ones.

Buttzville is one of those communities, except for one tiny part. Much the way the population of the small town of Park City, Utah, swells exponentially during the Sundance Film Festival, a tiny corner of this tiny town becomes the most densely populated place in New Jersey when Hot Dog Johnny's is open.

The roadside stand does a brisk summertime business, having stood between the scenic Pequest River and U.S. 46 for 60 years. While there are places with better hot dogs much closer to where I live (Galloping Hill Inn, for one), none of them compares to Hot Dog Johnny's setting. You can enjoy your meal at picnic benches near the river while the kids play on the swingset, or just sit on the hood of your car, watching the Harley riders kick up gravel as they pull into the lot. It seems like everyone within 20 miles gravitates to the open-air counters to order up hot dogs, fries and root beer in frosty mugs. In other words, it's packed.

Today, I took a wrong turn onto 46 in Hackettstown and figured what the heck, may as well check out Johnny's. Chances were that they wouldn't be open, or at least business would be slow. Nobody would be fishing in the Pequest in the below-freezing weather, nor would most pleasure riders be out on their motorcyles.

Boy, was I wrong. The sign read "open all year," and the gravel parking lot was full. They'd installed wooden walls to create a vestibule around the counter area, which was packed. Service was brisk and friendly, as always, and there was nowhere to sit in the enclosed dining area. It was way too cold to sit by the river, so back to the car it was.

I'm not quite sure why there were so many people there. A gaggle of teenagers was debating how many logoed t-shirts to get, so maybe it was the tourist trade after all. Johnny's is on the hot dog circuit for devotees of the tube steak, so that could account for some of it.

Nonetheless, I do kind of wonder if these people come out of the woodwork when I get there, the way the fabled 'satan cults' just happen to be on the same desolate road where some teenager's car breaks down. Or maybe everyone gets the itch the same time I do to drive an hour for a dog fried in peanut oil.