He traded big business for hot dogs. 41 years later, it’s a bittersweet goodbye for Sandy’s
Bud Sanderson knew all about opening businesses.
He’d opened Eckerd drugstores across the Southeast and had risen the ranks in the company, earning responsibility to oversee one-ninth of the company’s stores
The man had it made in business. But his work took him away from his family too often, he said.
So he gave it up — for hot dogs.
“It’s obvious I like to eat, and hot dogs had always been my favorite food,” said Sanderson, who left Eckerd four decades ago and founded Sandy’s Famous Hot Dogs.
“I could tell you every hot dog between here and Kingsport-Bristol, Virginia,” he said. “I knew where all the hot dog places were in North Carolina at that time, especially after I went into business. I sought them out. I wanted to see what everyone else was doing, and I wanted to make sure in every aspect of the food business, I’d do what I think is better.”
After 41 years of proudly serving his signature black, Angus beef hot dogs in Columbia and Lexington, 79-year-old Sanderson is retiring. His three remaining restaurants — two in Columbia and one in Lexington — will close their doors by the end of the year.
Sanderson confidently set out in his hot dog venture in 1979. He dreamed of turning one restaurant into a chain, and he knew how hard he was willing to work to make it happen, he said.
It started with one small restaurant in small-town Lexington, in the newly-built Village Square shopping center. He figured, “we’d be a small fish in a smaller town.”
Sanderson drew the Sandy’s logo himself. He cooked up his own special chili recipe. And after years of growing success, he and his wife, Maurice, refused numerous times to sell out to anyone they did not trust to carry on the legacy and values of their beloved Sandy’s.
The keys to good business all these years, Sanderson said, were making the food special and treating the people, employees and customers alike, just as special.
“We just make everything the very best we can and make sure we serve it with nice people,” he said. “We don’t have anybody but good people.”
The Sandersons once ran as many as eight restaurants across the Midlands. Now down to three locations (a fourth location near the University of South Carolina campus closed in 2017 after an odd controversy over student housing), the business is doing well, Sanderson said. His restaurants are earning more this year than last, he said.
Why close, then? It’s not at all that business is bad, Sanderson said. He and Maurice are just ready to retire.
“We’re not leaving because we don’t love it,” Sanderson said. “We’re so doggone proud of it.”
When the restaurants close, they’ll leave behind several dozen employees, including some who have devoted years of their lives to the business.
Sharon Taylor boasts 14 years as a Sandy’s manager. At the Broad River Road restaurant, she welcomes people she considers friends rather than customers.
“(Sandy’s) legacy stands for what it is: great hot dogs and good customer service,” Taylor said.
As someone who looks to Sanderson as a father figure, Taylor said Sandy’s last days are “bittersweet.”
“You hate to see a business like this close, but at the end of the day, you know it’s been a good run for him,” she said.
After the news of Sandy’s closing was first reported by April Blake of the Free Times last Friday, Sanderson’s restaurants saw floods of people over the weekend, many expressing their sadness, he said.
“I should have had a going-out-of-business sale once a month all these years,” Sanderson joked Monday.
He’s also fielded dozens of phone calls from people offering to buy the business, he said.
But for Sanderson, the option to sell has nothing to do with money, only whether he finds someone he trusts to carry on the Sandy’s name.
“If the right people or company comes along, then we might do it,” Sanderson said. “But I’ve got to be assured that it’s the same quality and standards that we’ve had.”
Sandy’s restaurants are located at:
1935 Broad River Road, Columbia
612 St. Andrews Road, Columbia
5175 Sunset Blvd., Lexington
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 3:19 PM.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy we report on business openings and closings
The restaurants, stores and other businesses that come and go in our communities have a direct effect on our everyday lives. Where you’ll take your family for dinner tonight or why your neighbor closed down the family shop — these are conversations you have all the time with one another, and The State newspaper strives to cover the things you talk about and care about.
Reporters at The State regularly drive and walk through local neighborhoods and retail centers to notice openings and closings, check public documents for hints about business moves and — most importantly — talk to our friends and neighbors about what they see, hear and wonder about in the community. Feel free to reach out to our reporters anytime to tell us what you know or ask us what you want to know about local businesses.
