# Blackie’s Has Never Served French Fries, and Never Will
Order at Blackie’s and you’ll quickly learn what isn’t on the menu. There are no french fries — there never have been, and the people who run the place don’t seem inclined to explain why beyond the fact that it’s simply not done. There’s no credit card machine either, just cash and an ATM inside for anyone caught short. And the stand is closed every Friday, a holdover from a Catholic family’s no-meat-on-Fridays tradition that has outlasted the religious rule itself.
The business started in 1925 as a gas station on a couple of acres along the Cheshire-Waterbury line, opened by Art Blackman, a Waterbury native, and his wife Mary Mahoney, who had left County Kerry, Ireland in search of work. The gas station became a gathering spot for neighbors, and the Blackmans began serving hot dogs topped with a homemade relish to keep people fed while they waited around. The relish caught on faster than the gasoline did. Within a few years, the family had a dance hall going on the property too, drawing couples late into the night — until local officials tried to levy a cabaret tax on the dancing, at which point the family posted a “No Dancing” sign rather than pay it, a sign that’s become as much a part of Blackie’s lore as the hot dogs themselves.
The stand itself, with its distinctive octagonal sections at either end, has changed only modestly since it opened, aside from a kitchen expansion and storage addition completed about a decade ago. The hot dogs are made to a custom recipe exclusive to Blackie’s by Martin Rosol’s Meats in New Britain, all beef, snapped in hot oil for a casing with a satisfying crack, served on a lightly toasted roll. Everything else is up to the customer at a self-serve topping station — except the relish, which nobody skips. It’s a spicy pepper relish, not the sweet pickle relish found elsewhere, and it’s sold by the jar to regulars who run out between visits. Ordering etiquette has its own local shorthand: “two and a birch” gets you two hot dogs and a birch beer, served on draft, the kind of phrase regulars say without a second thought and first-timers pick up fast.
The Blackman and Flavin families have run the stand for its entire history, and the business has resisted most of the changes that might otherwise come with a hundred years in business. There’s outdoor seating, a diner-style counter inside, and a building exterior with its neon signage largely intact. It sits close enough to the highway that travelers exiting at the Cheshire/Waterbury line on I-84 can’t easily miss it, and many don’t — Blackie’s draws customers well beyond Cheshire, people who plan a stop around it on long drives rather than discovering it by accident.
In 2025, Blackie’s was closing in on its hundredth year, still serving the same short menu its founders settled on nearly a century ago: hot dogs, burgers, birch beer, and that relish, with the fries and credit cards left out entirely, by design.
📍 2200 Waterbury Road, Cheshire, CT
🕐 Mon–Thu, Sat–Sun 11 am–7 pm; closed Fridays
🔗 blackieshotdogs.com