American Coney Island, Detroit Institution, Turns 100

DETROIT, MI — If you don’t like coney islands, hot dogs topped with savory meat sauce and stuffed in a bun, you could lose your Detroit card. The metro area is crawling with coney island joints, but the granddaddy of them all, American Coney Island, plans to celebrate its 100th anniversary on May 18 with a daylong party that features rollback pricing, music, raffles and giveaways, and other surprises.

American Coney Island wasn’t the first coney island restaurant in the United States, but it was among the first, and nearly all of the early coney islands were established independently by Greek and Macedonian immigrants fleeing the Balkan Wars in the early 1900s. They entered the United States through Ellis Island, bringing their culinary traditions with them, and used a favorite spot, Coney Island, to name their sandwiches.

That was the case with Constantine “Gust” Keros, who emigrated from Greece in 1903. His grandchildren still run the restaurant he founded a century ago.

The restaurant was only a cart at the time, and when a customer asked for a variation in toppings, Keros added some of the chili soup he was also also serving, topped it with mustard and sweet onions, and, voila, the American Coney Island tradition was born, his grandchildren told The Detroit News. Keros abandoned the cart in 1917 and opened a restaurant near the same corner it occupies today — at Lafayette Boulevard and Michigan Avenue.

Detroit expatriates still pine for American Coney Island dogs, according to a history on the restaurant’s website, which notes that Detroiters who have moved away say “one of the things they miss most about Detroit is Coney Islands from the American Coney Island downtown on Lafayette Street.”

For them, the website offers coney kits so they can put together a coney dog wherever they live. And if they happen to live in Las Vegas, Nevada, a second location has opened at the D Hotel Casino Las Vegas. There’s also an American Coney Island at the Detroit Zoo.

American Coney Island has drawn its share of famous visitors, too, including actor George Clooney and her highness, the Queen of England, but Grace Keros told The Detroit News that it’s ordinary people who have made American Coney Island a Detroit mainstay for 100 years.

The May18 “coneyversary” celebration from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. is a huge give-back to them.

They can grab a coney dog for a nickel from 9-10 a.m., and for a buck from 3-4 p.m. Raffle prizes include a trip to the D Hotel Casino and coney dogs for a year (proceeds benefit the Detroit Police Fund and Detroit Firemen’s Benevolent Fund). There will be plenty of music, including a barbershop quartet, a performance by Detroit blues legend Thornetta Davis and music with DJ Maroon. The 100th anniversary American Coney Island T-shirt designed by Kid Rock will be unveiled, and those who purchase Atwater beer will get a commemorative glass.

» To read more memories from the Keros family, go to The Detroit News.

Photo of American Coney Island dog by Eugene Kim via Flickr Commons