Rogoway saves Portland landmark

By Paul Haist

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Tyler Rogoway has been going to Nick’s Famous Coney Island on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard since he was a very young boy.

Rogoway, who learned retail in his family’s business here, LaRog Jewelers, starting when he was 12, will keep on going to Nick’s. He owns the joint now.

The old-style tavern and acclaimed hotdog palace has a magic about it that is irresistible to many and very special to Rogoway.

“All my dad’s (David’s) birthdays and mine we’d go to Nick’s and then to the Kupie Cone on 39th,” said the 27-year-old entrepreneur dressed in baggy shorts and a Nick’s Famous Coney Island T-shirt, white with red trim and picture of a big hotdog on a bun across his barrel chest.

He and his family and friends went to Nick’s lots of other times too.

“We’d go once a week, at least, with Dad,” said Rogoway. “One of the first memories I have is at 4 or 5 playing pinball in the back.”

“When I think about good times, I always think about Nick’s,” said Rogoway.

Nick’s is an institution in Rogoway’s life, just like it has been for Portland since shortly after Domenick “Nick” Carlacio first opened it across the street from its present location in 1935. It moved to its present site the year the United States drove the Japanese off Guadalcanal, 1943, and hasn’t changed much since then.

Well, it changed hands in 1960 when Frank Nudo bought the place from Nick. Nudo’s the man Rogoway associates with Nick’s.

“I knew Frank for years,” said Rogoway. “I always asked Frank, ‘If you ever want to sell, I’m your guy.’”

Nudo never sold the business. He closed the place earlier this year and took down the decades of sports and other memorabilia—a lot of Yankees stuff and movie stars and politicians—and left it all in the back, destined for the trash, except for a photograph of him and Bobby Kennedy.

Nudo did sell the building according to Rogoway, and that’s when he, Rogoway, stepped in with many others who were vying to keep Nick’s going.

Rogoway won. He reopened Nick’s on June 27. It looks the same as it always did.

“I wanted to keep that old feeling,” said Rogoway.

He thoroughly cleaned and refurbished the place: “All new equipment, a really clean, safe place to eat.”

But other than that the place is the same. Rogoway saved all the memorabilia that Nudo had taken down. It all went back up on the walls.

“I haven’t had one person come in and say it’s the same, but it’s not the same,” said Rogoway, referring to the many former customers who have returned, along with a new young crowd.

On a recent sunny lunchtime at Nick’s Tony Bennett was singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” on the sound system as people drifted in for lunch; the place was packed. Big Robert Bates, Rogoway’s garrulous manager, presided behind the counter. A group of older men filled the circular booth at the front of the room.

“You see that guy in the booth?” said Rogoway, pointing to longtime Nick’s regular Roger Forni. “That guy has the record for eating the most Coneys—five doubles, four mac salads and three pitchers of RC Cola.”

The Coney Island, a hot dog on a bun drenched in a burger sauce and topped with fresh chopped onions—you eat it with a knife and fork, is the mainstay staple at Nick’s. You get a single for $5.75, a double for $8, a triple play for $11 and a homerun (four dogs, two buns, sauce etc.) for $14.

Back in 1976, the Oregon Journal quoted Nudo on the subject of his Coney sauce. “I make the best there is. I have the gift. Even my dumbest customers will tell you that. I can’t explain it, but I just happen to have it inside me to make great Coneys.”

Rogoway says he and his kitchen crew worked hard to recreate Nick’s recipe for Coney sauce. He tastes it every day to make sure it’s right. They did the same with the signature macaroni salad too; it’s pink, “and always has been,” said Rogoway.

There’s lots of other food, but mostly they stayed with Nick’s traditional menu. A plain hotdog on a bun is $3.75.

Nudo might not approve, but Rogoway did add French fries to the menu.

“When people would ask for fries, Nudo would say, ‘You want fries, go to *#&^%!* Burger King.’”

Nudo had a reputation as a character—Rogoway called him “larger than life”—and Nick’s had a way of attracting characters, “characters like in a Quentin Tarantino movie,” he said, remembering from his childhood the furtive regular who he thought was a bookie.

“You’d see celebrities, the mayor, guys from the docks and a family of four,” said Rogoway.

While Rogoway may like Tarantino films, no furtive regulars hunkered down in a corner recently, the middle of the day, and the new owner has a business plan that is family friendly.

He said his plan is simple: “A great time, sports (three big-screen TVs), all food from scratch and the best Coney you’ll have in your life.”

“I was trained from childhood to make the customer happy,” said Rogoway. “When people walk in I want them to say, ‘This is my favorite place.’”

Nick’s Famous Coney Island is located at 3746 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., every day.