As third-generation owner of 110-year-old shop Cohen & Co. Hardware, Mitchell Cohen has spent a good part of his life on and around South Street. He still hasn’t gotten used to the absence of Gus’s Hot Dogs.
Gus quietly announced his retirement on Oct. 23, bringing an end to four and a half decades slinging frankfurters on the famed Philly corridor.
Regular customers and fans have responded with an online petition, set up by neighborhood resident Steve Ramm, to officially rename the southeast quadrant of 5th and South to “Gus’ Corner.”
There was no countdown for the pending retirement, no fanfare or press release, just a Facebook post stating a decision had been made. The low-key announcement was a “very Gus thing to do,” according to people who knew the cart vendor, an intensely private person who requested his last name be withheld and declined to provide comment for this story, other than express gratitude toward people trying to honor his legacy.
Though he shies from publicity, the hot dog vendor was a staple in the South Street community.
“It’s well-deserved,” said Cohen, the hardware scion, who didn’t have a hand in organizing the petition but was happy to sign it. Gus “was always there for you,” he said, come winter cold, summer heat, or even thunderstorms.
“I miss talking to him,” Cohen said, “about sports and this and that.”
Now 63, Cohen remembers Gus first setting up in 1978, in front of Green’s Drugs on the other side of the street from where the cart eventually ended up. The hardware store has since moved twice — from 534 South St. to 417 South St. and then 615 Passyunk Ave., where it currently stands — but he and his employees have remained loyal cart customers. “That’s a lot of years. It’s a lot of people.” And, he noted, “it’s a lot of hot dogs.”
Robert Perry, owner of Tattooed Mom a block away from where the cart stood, doesn’t remember how he found out about Gus’s retirement, but when he posted a tribute to the long-running career on his bar’s Instagram account, it provoked an outpouring.
“YESSSS. GUSSSS. This man deserves all the love and recognition. A true South Street icon,” wrote @sunnysawhney.
“A true icon who always filled us up and never let us down,” @anachroniste posted.
“Gus has got me through several of my days,” commented @jayouthier.
Similar comments are also filling the petition to rename the street corner. “I’d see Gus every shift at Woolly Mammoth. He was a tremendously kind person,” wrote signer Mike Armstrong.
Gus “impacted so many people’s lives in so many different ways,” said Perry, of Tattooed Mom. He recalled moving to Philly in the early ‘90’s, working a retail job on South Street and being constantly broke, and basically living off of Gus’s reliable and fairly-priced pretzels and chili dogs.
“I think it just speaks to how one person, one small business, can impact so many people,” Perry said, “across generations and all over the city.”
Rob Windfelder is the owner of Crash Bang Boom, the clothing store around the corner from Gus’s spot. Windfelder started patronizing the cart in the ’80s, and his go-to was the meatball sandwich, but he’d often stop by just to chat about life with the man he considered a “lifelong friend.”
He described Gus as an avid Philly sports fan with the healthy skepticism and sense of humor required to vend on South Street for 45 years. “He’s who people should aspire to want to be like,” Windfelder said. “A wonderful dude.”
Like others, he found out about Gus’s retirement through social media. “I wish him all the best but, boy, I’ll miss him,” Windfelder said. “And I’m not the only one.”
