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Finding Shorty's


 People who grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania know about Shorty's, or more properly Shorty's Lunch. First opened in the 1930's, Shorty's was and still is the only place to eat lunch in Washington, PA. Like so many Washingtonians, I grew up eating Shorty's hamburgers and hotdogs. Just to clarify, it's the hotdogs that are most famous but when I was about 8 or 9 I ate too many of his hotdogs and got sick. This had nothing to do with their quality but rather to the size of my eyes compared to the size of my stomach. 

"Four with everything". That's all you would have to say and you would get 4 hotdogs with mustard (yellow), onion and sauce. Their sauce of course was a family secret consisting of ground hotdog, chili and  those special other things. 

Like so many expatriates, I would go to Shorty's whenever I returned home to visit family and friends. But living 1,400 miles from Shorty's limits my visits. So I have been trying to make my own Shorty's Hamburgers here in Colorado. My experiments are based on some known facts and a few theories/legends.

( * = theory/legend)

  1. The hamburger meat is made into a loaf, baked and sliced into patties. *
  2. The onions are reconstituded dried chopped onions.
  3. The sauce is made from ground hotdogs and a mild chili.  

So far I would say that I am 20% there. Until I can really feel that I have it, I guess I'll just keep returning to Shorty's.

Maybe 20%








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