Madison Taylor

OK, spent part of the afternoon downtown for the first Beer-B-Que, sponsored by the Rusted Bucket Tavern and some other Davis Street businesses as a fund-raiser for Lupus. Considering the shaky weather, the street festival is doing pretty well. Cool band playing mostly late ’60s songs by CCR with some of The Band mixed in. Great barbecue (this ain’t no road kill Rick Perry!) and a small but hearty gathering of folks (more than 100 but fewer than 200 when I took back off for the office at around 4:30.

It continues into this evening. Check it out if you’re reading this right now.

The highlight so far, of course, is the hot dog eating contest sponsored by Davis Street’s longest-standing business — Zack’s Hot Dogs. It was a spirited competition (hey Zack puts chili on those dogs, which makes it harder!). Here’s the photo essay.

And no, I didn’t enter. Too full from barbecue.

Zack takes charge of things before contestants get started.

Ready, set … EAT!

This kid was a competitor to the end — but managed three dogs in five minutes. And no, the beer isn’t his. It belongs to the adult to his right.

Contestants work up a powerful thirst wolfing down the dogs.

And the winner is … Ricky Bowes, who crushed the competition when he started eating two hot dogs at a time. “I don’t know how the New York guys do it,” he said later. Ricky knocked down eight Zack dogs with chili in five minutes. His secret? “I’ve been eating since I was little,” he explained.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.