MACON — No mere hot dogs are these. Around here, they are pork-and-beef icons, fire engine-red frankfurters bathed in chili made from a secret family recipe more than a century old.
Down the ages since 1916, the fare at Nu-Way Weiners and the brand itself have become a Middle Georgia institution, winning hearts and stomachs with a consistent taste and a quirky name, compliments of a long-ago sign-maker’s misspelling of “wieners.”
Nu-Way is among the oldest hot dog joints in the country, a couple of years younger than one in Indiana and a couple of weeks younger than Nathan’s Famous in New York City.
Nu-Way is also one of the oldest continuously operating eateries in the state. The Plaza Restaurant in Thomasville, which touts itself as Georgia’s oldest, was also established in 1916 and was first owned by a close relative of James Mallis, Nu-Way’s Greek-immigrant founder.
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
According to Jim Cacavias, Nu-Way’s president and co-owner, Mallis arrived in Macon from New York to visit kin and noticed there were no hot dog carts or stands to speak of. He had seen them everywhere in New York and figured hot dogs might sell down South. He took a chance and opened his own stand. From there, tradition took hold.
“It’s Greek heritage, family, strong ties,” Cacavias, 68, says. “We take tremendous pride in the hot dog. I mean, it’s 109-and-a-half years old here. We make sure that it’s better than it was.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
He still has the secret chili recipe that his father kept on a laminated card in his wallet. For ages, the beefy brew was homemade in a 40-gallon kettle, simmered for 24 hours. In more recent times, the chili-making has been farmed out to a food service in Marietta, which pumps out the same secret recipe.
“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, it’s simple … ground beef, add chili spice and a few other spices,’” Cacavias says. “We’ve had people that have tried to make it, and they’re like, ‘I don’t know how in the world y’all make it.’”
His father, Gus Cacavias, once told him you can analyze the ingredients in a lab and find out how much cinnamon or apple spice and other ingredients are in the concoction.
“What they can’t tell you is the systematic cooking of when do you add these ingredients. That’s the secret. Cooking it the proper way,” Cacavias says.
The quintessential book on Nu-Way and its history, “There Is More Than One Way to Spell Wiener,” quotes food guru John T. Edge as saying, “You can argue that is the way ‘weiner’ is spelled in Macon.”
The book notes that former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue enlisted Nu-Way to cater his staff lunch on his final day in office. The book also mentions that columnist and humorist Lewis Grizzard once declared Nu-Way “one of the world’s most outstanding restaurants.”
Little Richard ate there. Oprah Winfrey, too.
Nu-Way has long been lauded for its chili dogs and its slaw dogs, the latter hailed by The New York Times as “the acknowledged king” of said cabbage-topped creations. The Times, in 2002, described Nu-Way’s ambience as being “like a comfortable neighborhood coffee shop, except everyone happens to be eating hot dogs.”
The eateries — five in Macon, two in Warner Robins and one in Fort Valley — dish out Americana to the hilt. The company slogan is locally iconic: “I’d go a long way for a Nu-Way.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Nu-Way is arguably as much a part of Macon’s heritage as its music greats. The hot doggery’s flagship location on Cotton Avenue in downtown Macon burned a decade ago and part of its former footprint is now home to the Otis Redding Center for the Arts.
Cacavias recalls how years ago a woman called and asked if the original Nu-Way could close early one day so that her family could rent the place ahead of her parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. It seems her father had proposed to her mother in a booth and they wanted to reenact the moment.
Cacavias said yes. “I was boo-hooing,” he says. “What do you say when people come to you with that kind of story?”
Credit: Georgeanna Walden/Special
Credit: Georgeanna Walden/Special
As for the famed red franks, they were made locally for about a century until Nu-Way, seeking a more consistent wiener when hometown makers came and went, turned to a sausage factory in Michigan.
Says Cacavias, “They do an unbelievable job with our red wieners.”
And so do the Macon cooks who grill them, dozens at a time, on oil-greased griddles. The trick to know when they’re ready? Hold them with your fingers, straight up and down. If they stand tall, they’re done.
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
For cook Christine Finnell, 67, who also makes the Nu-Way coleslaw in an ancient Hobart mixer, building the perfect hot dog has been a point of pride since she began working there 24 years ago.
“I like mine decent and presentable,” Finnell says. “I don’t like chili running all over my hot dog, and I don’t like onions (falling) all over. I want everything right on top of that hot dog. Makes it look real good.”
So what is it about Nu-Ways that set them apart?
“When you bite into that mustard and onion and chili and the hot dog is cooked well … that juice hits your mouth,” Finnell says. “You’ll be saying, ‘Oh, my God. I’ve got to have another one.’”
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
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