Springfield’s popular Cozy Dog Drive In has been consigned to poster-ity.
More Top Picks Best Compact Cable Machines For Apartments
The Illinois Bureau of Tourism is featuring the eatery — which claims to be the home of the battered hot dog on a stick and was profiled in Tempo last Aug.16 — in its latest batch of posters for its 2-year-old “Offbeat Illinois” campaign. The vintage-style posters highlight the state’s quirky attractions and can be seen on area bus shelters and train platforms. Smaller versions are sold online (enjoyillinois.com) along with T-shirts, mugs, tote bags and stationery.
The Cozy Dog poster brings to mind a World War II-era poster. A caped nurse holds in the crook of her arm a corn dog, feeding it from a mustard bottle. The legend below: “Visit the Birthplace of the Corn Dog.”
Sue Waldmire, owner of Cozy Dog, which has been in business in Springfield more than 60 years, said she liked the poster, although her preference was for something more literal, such as the Cozy Dog logo. But Bob Waldmire, her ex-brother-in-law and a son of the corn dog’s inventor, the late Ed Waldmire Jr., was very pleased. He noted that his dad long ago promoted his specialty as the “G.I. hot dog.”
“I’m so glad the nurse is holding a squeeze bottle of mustard and not ketchup,” he said. “Putting ketchup on a corn dog is sacrilegious.”
The Cozy Dog has fans around the world, but that fame didn’t translate into a spot on the tourism bureau’s new “Seven Wonders of Illinois.”
The list is based on an online vote in March by visitors to the bureau’s Web site. The number of votes cast was not disclosed. Each “wonder” is from a different region of the state. They are:
Wrigley Field, Chicago.
Baha’i House of Worship, Wilmette.
Starved Rock State Park, Utica.
Allerton Park and Retreat
Center, Monticello.
Black Hawk State Historic Site, Rock Island.
Rend Lake, Benton.
Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway, Alton.
———-