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“She’s nine, so I’m not expecting it to be a life-long decision,” he says. He didn’t have a relationship with his own father growing up, and now he and his wife feel its important to teach self sufficiency to Brooklyn and her sister, five-year-old Bailey.
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Working side-by-side with his eldest daughter has given Morelli a chance to show her how to work hard for what she wants. Brooklyn has become so popular among those in the know that customers will leave tips for her even when she’s not working. The pair have become fixtures on the Hot Dog Box’s Instagram account, giggling over dad jokes and busting out dance moves inside the 400-square-foot restaurant. When a partner backed out of a planned cookies and ice cream business in a Boxville container just three weeks before its launch, Morelli seized on the humble hot dog.Ī post shared by The Hot Dog Box says he never anticipated the huge public reaction to his menu, the box (equipped with a giant Connect Four game for customers to play while they wait), or Brooklyn, his pint-sized assistant. A tour for his newly released album, Life on Replay, was canceled, and business clients seeking to cut down on costs began dropping away.
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A recording artist and web designer, he watched his livelihoods vanish over the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The journey to hot dog greatness has been fraught for Morelli. “If I have to go sell hot dogs on the corner to not have the pressure and stress of corporate America, I’m going to sell hot dogs and be at peace.” “I’ve been searching for my life’s purpose and hot dogs are my channel,” he says. When that eventually happens, he wants the container to remain.
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The business is bustling enough that he’s already thinking about expanding beyond the box to a full location with indoor dining. He’s in the midst of recipe testing for a chicken-and-waffle dog, and is considering Brooklyn’s suggestion of a pizza hot dog. The latter has quickly become a best seller, but now shares a menu with other unusual combinations like a Compass Steak dog (four-ounce filet mignon hot dog, shrimp, spinach, creamy chipotle hot honey sauce) and a smoked teriyaki salmon hot dog (spinach, teriyaki sauce, green onions, toasted sesame seeds).Ī post shared by The Hot Dog Box have so embraced Morelli’s decadent hot dogs that he’s aiming to introduce a new swath of options for the summer and a special menu available only during Sunday brunch. The Hot Dog Box opened with a tight two-dog selection: a traditional Chicago-style sausage dragged through the garden, and a creation dubbed the Bronzeville Bourbon Dog, with smokey barbecue sauce, sport peppers, bacon, and carrot-cabbage slaw. Now the accolades are rolling in, and the team is preparing for a slew of new offerings this summer. The Hot Dog Box, a newish operation from founder Bobby Morelli and his nine-year-old daughter Brooklyn, debuted last August inside a fire-engine red shipping container inside the Boxville marketplace just east of 51st and the Green Line. A father-daughter team is taking Chicago’s storied sausage scene by storm, bringing creative combinations, fresh energy, and social media savvy to the Bronzeville neighborhood.