Red Hot Art on the Ave

Art on the Ave is back! We’ll be opening at 11 am this Sunday. We’ll have a sidewalk table (featuring a brown-bag special for those who want a meal on the go…all beef hot dog, bag of chips, moon pie, and a RC Cola) and seating set up out front on the Ave (rest your feet and grab some eats), and we’ll have an outdoor beer garden set up out back (with an additional 4 handles pouring out back as well) with tons of seating. You can even duck inside for an air conditioning break. It’s always a killer time. I hear the Fashion Show next door at The Wedding Bell will be making a trip thru our beer garden as well.

If you hate crowds, the AOTA stuffs is over at 5, & we’ll be open to our regular Sunday close time of 10pm. Word.

The Red Hot…Now With More Moon Pie!

Being of Southern stock, my childhood fascination and love of RC Cola and MoonPies have worked their way into my business.

We’ve always carried the smaller Mini-MoonPies, never being able to locate a distributor for their larger brethren.

Well friends, our day has come…and we now have the Ultimo-version of this perfect snack…The Double Decker MoonPie!

Chocolate, Banana, and Vanilla, like always, only huge-mungous sized! I measured one in at 3 3/8 inches wide. Is this heaven…?

Birthday Thanks

So it’s finally here. As of tomorrow, we will have made it one year here on 6th Ave.

Thanks to all who have supported us, and continue to do so! Your patronage is deeply appreciated. Special mad-props go out to The Parkway Tavern Family, Barry and The Rosewood Cafe Family, Donna and The Tacoma Boys Family, K-Fry and The FeedTacoma.com Family, and Ron Swarner and The Weekly Volcano Fam. Your generosity is amazing. You all rule. Super-special Shizz-Tastic thanks go to all our staff. I have never met a group of insanely loyal and rabidly Red Hot fanatic people ever. We couldn’t have done it without you.

The Par-Tay on Saturday should be a blast. We’re giving away the highly coveted PBR Cruiser Bike.

(pssst…We have more bikey suprises for all of you coming up soon!)

We’ll also have a Firkin Cask on of custom-made-for-us-by-Fish-Tale-Brewing “Red Hot AugustFest Bier”, a German/American dry-hopped Cask Ale that is gonna be frickin’ amazing:

We’ll be open outside with more brew offerings and lots o’ seating. Our entire line-up looks like this:

ON TAP
Stone IPA
Lagunitas IPA
Deschutes Inversion IPA
Snoqualmie Wildcat IPA
Snoqualmie Copperhead Pale Ale
North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner
New Belgium Summer Wheat
Maritime Pacific Old Seattle Lager
Red Hot AugustFest Cask Ale (custom one-off)
Georgetown 9LB Porter
Alaskan Oatmeal Stout
Wyder’s Peach Draft Cider
RAINIER
PBR

BOTTLES/CANS
New Belgium Fat Tire Amber (bottles and cans)
Lagunitas Sirius Cream Pale Ale
Russian River Damnation 750mL(very few left)
Elysian Loser Pale 22oz(very few left)
Left Hand Milk Stout
Moose Drool Brown Ale
Pyramid Hefeweizen
Full Sail Session Lager
Rainier Tallboys
PBR Tallboys
Miller Lite
Miller High Life
Budweiser
Bud Light

FOR THE WINOS:
14 Hands Cabernet
Happy Camper Merlot
Primaterra Pinot Grigio
14 Hands Chardonnay

We also have a good selection for the non-alcohol types…and hot dogs. Lots and lots of hot dogs…and our new bad-ass stickers.

I’m super excited. Thanks again to all! Hope to see you Saturday Night!

A Good Day

Yesterday shaped up to be a killer day. I had heard we were going to be named ‘Best Cheap Date’ in the Weekly Volcano’s “Best Of” issue. I got a huge smile on my mug as I saw I was named “Best Bar Owner” in Tacoma as well. Nothing like a little nod or atta-boy to boost your well being.

Immediately after reading the WV, the editor and publisher of Beer Northwest Magazine walked in. They had heard about us, and stopped in for a couple beers, a couple dogs, and some picture taking. We shot the breeze for a few, and then they were off to their homebase down PDX way. Rad.

I also got the final go-ahead on opening up our back lot for our 1-year Anniversary Party (August 16th). It should be a friggin’ blast outside! Fish Tale is making us a special cask beer (Red Hot AugustFest Bier!) to have on tap, we’re giving away the bike, and if more people sign up, the RH Hot Dog Eating Contest is a GO! If you or anyone you know wants to compete, please let me know (delicioushotdogs at gmail dot com)! Winners will be rewarded with fame, glory, and free stuffs! Woo!

Free Bicycle

You just gotta win it…

The PBR Bike that has hung in The Red Hot since we opened…the one we said we’d never give away…well…we’re giving it away.

Our one-year anniversary is right around the corner (AUGUST 16TH), and the bike is probably the source of the most asked question of “when are you gonna give that bike away?”.

It’s a single-speed cruiser with a coaster brake. Old school. It’s never been ridden, and the tires have only touched the ground inside the Red Hot where it was taken out of it’s shipping packaging. It will be given a once over by Red Hot pal Justin, one of the bike guys up at REI before you ride it away.

You can enter your name in the random raffle at The Red Hot once per day up until Saturday August 16th. The drawing will take place that eve during our big-ass celebration (we’ll be open out in our back parking lot for outdoor seating, there’s gonna be a hot dog eating contest, we’ll have a special “AugustFest” cask beer made especially for us by Fish Brewing, and all kinds of other fun stuffs). You must be present to win, and you must use the bike. If you do not use it, you will be hunted down and flogged. Many a patron has salivated over owning this bad scoot, so we want to see it go to a good home.

We’ll be open tomorrow, too…

Since I was in construction during last year’s AOTA, I’m stoked to open for this year’s. I hope the intersection street painting at 6th and Pine is dope as it sounds. Our Air Conditioning and taps (Snoqualmie Wildcat IPA, Stone IPA, Diamond Knot XIPA, North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner, Lazy Boy Amber, Spire & Wyder’s Pear Cider, Steamtrain Porter, Red Seal Pale Ale, and of course PBR and Rainier) will cool your bones during tomorrow’s toasty festival. We’ll have outdoor seating on the Ave for eating and sody-pop drinking, and for taking to-go orders for the kiddies. Inside, cooler heads shall prevail. Grownups only and biz as usual. Our ultra-affordable menu is in full effect to go easy on your clams so you’ze can buy up some arty-type stuffs. it’s gonna be a good time. Kick ass.

Italian Beefs

If you’ve ever been to a hot dog stand in Chicago, you no doubt know what an Italian Beef is. A traditional street food, like the almighty hot dog.

Our master sentient being Wikipedia says this about the elusive italian beef.

The Red Hot will have Italian Beefs available regularly starting Friday, but we have a limited amount (about 60) available right now for those who want to see what the hubbub is all about. Street food is king…

Sweet…

As if downing 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes wasn’t enough, Californian competitive eater Joey Chestnut shattered another eating record this weekend: 103 Krystal hamburgers in 8 minutes at this past weekend’s Krystal Square Off IV World Hamburger Eating Championship.

This marks the first time someone has eaten above the 100-burger mark, and also marks another of Takeru Kobayashi’s record’s broken by Mr. Chestnut. Full detail here.

And if that eating news isn’t enough for ya, try this: We made it onto eatfeats.com list ‘o links:

CHECK IT: Challenger eats 13 types of hot dogs in Tacoma, WA

Puttin’ Tacoma on the map, one eater at a time…

New Champion Eater

See this guy?

This guy toppled The Red Hot’s previous record for Champion Eater (Josh Moore)…NAY, he DESTROYED it. Josh had a record of 7 dogs. Our new champ, cook and swell guy extraordinaire Ryan from over at The Parkway), ALMOST woofed down the ENTIRE MENU of dogs…IN ORDER! As the first customer to try and “Run the Gauntlet”, we were all shocked. He even did this in 2 1/2 hours. He chowed 1 Chicago, 1 Coney, 1 Red Hot, 1 6th Ave Strut, 1 Puget Polish, 1 Murray Morgan Bridge Brat, 1 T-Dome T-Dog, 1 Destiny City Slaw Dog (he started showing signs of slowing down here), the North End Not Dog (he agreed with me that this is the speedbump in running the gauntlet…meat eaters not so used to the texture of protein dogs), a Naked Narrows (signs of fatigue), and then made it halfway through our ridiculous Tideflats. Astonishing. The total for the menu is 13 sausages…roughly 2 1/3 pounds of meat, and a total of roughly 7 to 8 pounds of food. So close! He said he will conquer it soon. All Hail Ryan! His picture is going up with Josh’s, and our Gauntlet plaque will arrive soon. I am sure Ryan and Josh will both be in our hot dog eating contest lineup (sooner than later!)

So Fresh and So Clean…

A few days ago we went thru one of many new business rites of passage…the surprise health department inspection. We do our best to keep our place ship-shape, and was pleased it was noticed by the health folks by receiving a perfect zero penalties.

Today we kept it up by receiving the 6th Ave Business District Broomie! I am stoked. They give it out to business owners who are seen out and about keeping their areas clean and tidy. Me and my pop have logged a good bit of time on the end of our trusty arsenal of brooms out and around our building, so it’s cool to finally get a broom that is meant for not working (the Broomie is a one-of-a-kind painted broom for display…I’ll post pics when we get it and hang it up).

See this guy?:

This is all-around swell guy Josh Moore. Doorman extraordinaire over at Magoo’s. He doesn’t look his happy-go-lucky grinning self in this pic. Maybe it’s because it was taken right after he became The Red Hot’s Champion Eater! Josh woofed down 7 menu dogs (2 Murray Morgan Bridge Brats, 2 Puget Polish Dogs, 1 Coney, 1 Destiny City Slaw Dog, and 1 Red Hot), and I believe he could have easily done more, but wanted to see if anyone challenged his mark…so he could destroy it all over again. Josh’s pic will hang proudly soon so we may all worship his uncanny eating abilities.

And if anyone reading is so inclined…we’ve went and done it: The Red Hot’s Myspace Page