Gordon Woodworth (2022)
Siblings Nick Gazetos, left, and Ali Gazetos Mineo are the fourth generation of their family to work at New Way Lunch. They have added retail sales of the "Dirt Dog" secret sauce to the menu.
New Way Lunch is now selling its “Dirt Dog” secret hot dog sauce in 12-ounce bottles, and their Glens Falls restaurant on South Street—closed for nearly two years after the pandemic first struck—will reopen this summer after a facelift and the addition of storage space in the back.
“And we’ll have a beautiful covered dining area in the alley between our building and the Empire Theater,” said Ali Gazetos Mineo, 29, who along with her brother Nick is taking on more responsibility as their parents, Susan and Peter, get closer to retirement.
Ali and Nick are the fourth generation of their family to work at New Way Lunch.
“We hope to start the renovations in the spring, and we’re hoping to open sometime this summer,” Ali said. “We will have to restaff, which is not easy.”
Selling the fabled meat sauce, with its century-old recipe, “is a big deal for us. It’s a great opportunity for our customers to send our sauce to loved ones around the country.”
The sauce—$8.95 a bottle—is being sold at the Queensbury location on Upper Glen Street and at the Warrensburg store. It will be available online at www.newwaylunch.com in mid-March.
Sue Gazetos said they thought about doing it back in the late 1990s, “but there was no time for it.”
New Way Lunch used to ship hot dogs with the works all over the world, but they don’t anymore. The sauce will again expand the eatery’s reach.
Craft Cannery in Rochester is producing and bottling the secret sauce.
Will the recipe be on the label?
“No,” Ali said. “Some ingredients will be on there, but not all of the ingredients.”
Sue Gazetos said they attended a test run, and signed off on the process and the final product.
Like many small businesses, New Way Lunch has struggled with supply-chain issues, prompting a change to Sabrett hot dogs.
“They are custom-making them for us in the Bronx,” Ali said. “We’ve been using the new hot dogs since mid-summer. They are more like the original hot dogs we had for 20 years [until changing a few years back]. They are still our custom-blend pork-and-beef hot dogs.
"That has never changed,” she said.
She said supply-chain issues are getting worse. Shortages run the gamut, from paper products to granulated sugar.
“But we haven’t had to take things off the menu,” she said.
The younger generation has also reached back into New Way Lunch’s history, resurrecting an old logo depicting their great grandfather John Floro holding a plate of hot dogs. The logo will accompany a mini-rebranding of an expanding apparel selection.
“We’re gearing it toward the younger generation,” Ali said.
How’s business?
Sue Gazetos said business is fine, but as seen in hospitality regionally: “Staffing is the issue.”
But, Ali said, it’s getting better: "We’ve been closed in Queensbury on Sundays and Mondays, but we’re hoping to reopen on Mondays after our annual deep cleaning break in February.”
Sue said the Warrensburg restaurant is closed on Mondays and closes at 4 p.m. every day because they don’t have enough staff to run into the evening.