Skin Thrashers

This morning we packed up and headed to Charlotte, NC to visit family and friends. While my wife drove through South Carolina, I decided to Google for an interesting hot dog joint near Greenville -- roughly our half-way point where we'd stop to gas up and grab some lunch.

It didn't take long to realize that the obvious choice was a place called Skins Hot Dogs. There were about 10 Skins restaurants in the area. Apparently Lloyd "Skin" Trasher opened up the first Skins in Anderson, SC in 1946. Yes, his nickname was Skin. That makes the official name "Skin Thrasher's Hot Dogs". I wish I was making that up.

We rolled up at about 10:30 AM to this glorious facade:

Unfortunately, they didn't open this particular branch until 11:00. Bollocks! We used the GPS to find a little park nearby and fed the boys. Lacking a proper bottle warmer, we got a bit creative:

We arrived back at Skins at 11:15. The best way I can describe the decor is "utilitarian". "Dirty" also comes to mind. But the beauty here is in the menu. Let's see if I can re-create it from memory:

• Hot Dogs

Uh, yep. That's it. Of course you could get a few sides and drinks, but there are no other entrees served here.

Okay, to be more precise you could either get a hot dog or a chili dog. I decided to get one of each. When the teeny-bopper waitress took my order, she informed me that the chili dogs are not normally served with a hot dog. Say what? I insisted on the hot dog.

When the meal arrived, I ended up with two chili dogs. Oh well, at least they both had a hot dog in them. Again, not much to look at:

See that whitish thing underneath the chili? That's the hot dog. Apparently made from an albino cow.

Given everything we had seen (and smelled) so far, I really expected to hate these hot dogs. But old Skin Thrasher had something special in store for us. Gastritis? Oily discharge? No matter; these things were tasty!

Hot dog count: 18

Dog on...