Wednesday, Jun. 11, 2008

Hot dog days to relish in Myrtle Beach

Sink your teeth into Peaches Corner’s famous foot-long

TASTES OF SUMMER

Throughout June, July and August, we’ll pay homage to the foods that make the season.

MYRTLE BEACH — A discussion of summer food must start with the hot dog. Preferably a foot-long dog, topped with chili, mustard and onions, offering in one bite a mingling of salty, sour and spicy tastes, along with plenty of messy goodness to ooze down your arm.

Besides a backyard or a ballpark, the best place to consume a hot dog is at a hot dog joint, preferably at a beach like Myrtle in a place smack in the middle of Myrtle Beach at its Myrtle Beachy-est.

It should be eaten at a counter, a short throw from the ocean, a spot where if you stretch your neck out one side you might see a bit of the Atlantic, or if you look in the other direction you can see henna tattoo shops and cheap T-shirt stores and a museum offering the odd and the macabre.

It should be washed down with a draft beer — or at least a lemonade — so cold the first gulp practically gives you a brain freeze.

It should be eaten at a place like Peaches Corner.

Peaches has sat at 9th Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard since 1937, making it as close to a historic landmark as you’ll find in this beach resort, where the old is replaced with the new before it ever really gets old.

But not too much changes inside the blue-and-white building. Twenty stools still line the Formica-covered bar. Seven booths are wedged into the back. A sign beckons visitors to “Try the famous Peaches Corner foot long.”

The prices, naturally, have jumped a bit. A foot-long all-the-way is $3.60, up from the 15 cents and two-for-a-quarter charge when Peaches first opened. Ham sandwiches, a popular staple in the early days, are off the menu. And large hams no longer hang above the sliding glass doors.

But the past is partly responsible for bringing people back to the counter at Peaches each year. The chance to recapture youthful days at the beach, days of sunburns and Sun Fun and cruising the Boulevard. Of the Pavilion and the Magic Attic and the Bowery. Of hot dogs and cheeseburgers and first sips of beer. The chance to introduce the next generation and the one after that to a simple slice of beach life.

“People come back to relive their memories,” said Briggs Dickerson, who runs Peaches these days. “We see a lot of familiar faces; people who come annually or every two years or every five years. We hear a lot of stories. People say, ‘My parents brought me here,’ or ‘We always came here with my grandparents when we came to the beach.’”

The Myrtle Beach Peaches was one of three original locations opened in the mid-1930s. The others were in Folly Beach and Carolina Beach, N.C. The first owners ran Peaches Corner from 1937 until 1944, when it was purchased by Johnny Burroughs and his wife, Eunice Burroughs Singleton.

Singleton, known to many as Meme, died on New Year’s Day this year, what would have been her 64th year of working at Peaches Corner. The duties now fall to Dickerson, who is married to Johnny and Eunice’s granddaughter, Blair.

“It’s such a privilege for me to be part of this. There’s so much history to this building and the people involved with Peaches Corner,” said Dickerson, who is in his 11th year working at Peaches.

He is the one who makes the famous chili, mixing up 30 gallons of it every 10 days, using ground beef, tomato juice, puree and some other ingredients. (He could not be persuaded to part with the more-than-50-year-old recipe). The chili is ladled onto the all-beef foot-longs, 1,200 of which are steamed and sold every week in the summer.

He said his business has changed some since the Pavilion closed in October 2006. Gross profits at Peaches are down 20 percent. “We miss it,” Dickerson said. “It was our drawing card, especially at night.”

On a recent weekday, beer delivery workers on their lunch break shared the counter with families from Illinois and Missouri, all grabbing a foot-long or a cheeseburger, fries or onion rings.

Brian Lynch, 18, stopped in for a foot-long with ketchup on his lunch break. He has been coming to Peaches since he was 6 years old, stopping in with his father, who also delivered beer in the area.

“We don’t have a lot of places like this anymore,” Lynch said. “It’s unique, nowadays. Back then it wasn’t.”

Meanwhile, the Scott family from West Columbia was tucked into a booth. They’ve been coming to Peaches for at least the past eight years, loving the nostalgia and atmosphere (It’s one of three places the family hits during each beach vacation; the others are Hamburger Joe’s in North Myrtle and Nance’s seafood in Murrells Inlet.) Dad Edwin, mom Susan and son James had foot-longs; Edwin Jr. ordered a cheeseburger.

At the counter, John Sonsoucie of Smithton, Ill., was sharing lunch with his wife and 13-year-old daughter, along with other relatives. They vacation in Cherry Grove every year, and they always came down to the Myrtle Beach strip to visit the Pavilion. The amusement park, which sat cater-cornered to Peaches, now is just a giant, empty lot.

“My wife’s father grew up around here, and the first time we came down, we had to go to Peaches for a hot dog,” Sonsoucie said.

They’ve been coming back ever since.

ABOUT PEACHES CORNER

Where: 900 N. Ocean Blvd. (at 9th Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard) Myrtle Beach

Hours: Open daily, 11 a.m. until

Note: Peaches closes from November through mid-February.

More info: www.peaches-corner.com

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