King of the Wieners in Olneyville

King of the Wieners in Olneyville

Olneyville New York System is one of the old-timers. It's been around since... well, that starts fights, so let's just say it's been around a while.

Anthony Stevens and his son Nicholas opened the original restaurant at 8 Olneyville Square, in 1946. Greek immigrants by way of Brooklyn, they'd moved to Rhode Island in the late 1930s and joined other family members running Original New York System on Smith Street. When the pair opened their own store in Olneyville, the menu consisted of just hot wieners (priced at a mere five cents apiece) and a few other lunch items. In 1953 they opened a new 24-hour operation in the present location, but by 1968 it was clear the early morning hours weren't profitable enough to make it worthwhile, so the hours were cut back. In 1981 a second location opened in Cranston and a third was added in North Providence in 2008. The Stevens family, now in its fourth generation, still operates all three locations.

Not a lot has changed at Olneyville New York System since the '60s. In 2008 new menu cards replaced yellowed, decades-old signs on the soffit above the preparation counter, but that's about it. We'll miss the old menu cards with their pasted-over prices. They were one of many elements that contributed to the store's comfortingly gritty character. This is the kind of a place where, if you order anything other than wieners, they might give you a funny look.

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Besides wieners, there's coffee milk and there's vinegar for your fries (of course). Greg Stevens, current owner of Olneyville New York System, tells us they sell more coffee milk than any other retail restaurant, and even more than some supermarkets. "We sell coffee milk over white milk by about ten to one."

Unlike the hot dogs you're used to purchasing in your local grocery store, "authentic" New York System wieners come in a continuous rope about twenty feet long. The wieners, which are made of pork, beef, and veal wrapped in a natural casing, have to be cut to size by hand every day, seven days a week.

Stevens won't reveal how many wienies are sold during any particular time period, but he did tell us about a couple of unusually large orders: "A couple of times, we have had people have us deliver 200 to weddings late at night—once to the Biltmore and once at the Alpine Country Club."

In other menu trivia, if you order beef stew, be prepared for something you wouldn't want to eat with a spoon. In New York System parlance, "beef stew" is an order of French fries loaded with salt, vinegar, and ketchup.  According to Stevens, the term was coined by a crotchety old counter guy named Tom "The Bomb" in the early 1980s. When customers ordered their fries loaded up with vinegar, ketchup, and salt, Tom would complain, "With all that [expletive deleted] on there I should charge you for a beef stew." He said it so often that regulars began asking for it by name. And they still do.

Mon-Thurs 7am-2am, Fri-Sat, 7am-3am, Sun 6pm-2am, 18 Plainfield St., Providence, 621-9500, www.olneyvillenysystem.com 

Christopher Scott Martin is a founding editor of www.quahog.org, and a passionate archivist of all things historic and local.  

Photo: Christopher Martin/Quahog.org