Vienna Beef owner: Chicago is the only place for Chicago hot dogs

Posted on August 5, 2018

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – There’s only one place where you can make a Chicago hot dog, says one of the owners of Vienna Beef.

“We are a Chicago company, an Illinois company,” said Jim Bodman, the company’s chairman and CEO, “We have, on many occasions, been offered huge financial incentives to go to other areas, but there is just something awkward about listening to the phrase, ‘a Chicago hot dog made in Muncie, Indiana.’”

Bodman spoke at a ceremony celebrating Vienna Beef’s 125th anniversary. Austria-Hungarian immigrants began selling their sausages at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

Governor Bruce Rauner, a Vienna Beef fanboy, claims there’s no way to keep track of all of the company’s product’s he’s eaten, particularly at Portillo’s.

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