NYC hot dog vendor evicted over whopping rent bill
 

NEW YORK – Homeowners aren't the only ones in hot water over overpriced real estate. A New York City hot dog vendor has been evicted from his prize spot outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art because he couldn't pay a whopping rent bill of nearly $54,000 a month.

Snack cart owner Pasang Sherpa of Queens had a deal with the city's parks department that required him to pay almost $643,000 per year for the vending rights near the museum steps.

He says he was $310,000 behind on his payments when he was evicted.

The Parks Department had auctioned off the rights to the spot last year.

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Information from: Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com

Holy shit, that's expensive rent.

thats a lot of hot dogs

So he won the position with a bid of that much?

why would he even agree to pay that much rent in the first place....

i wonder how much money he makes a month selling hot dogs..

Actually In NYC. You can sell a shit load of Hot Dogs in a month. So much that you can pay for the expensive rent and still earn double to triple income. It's NYC after all, too many hot dog stands....

$54000/month...

Say each hot dog is $5...

That means he has to sell 10800 hot dots per month to make that amount... or 360 per day... or 30 per hour if assuming 12 working hours per day.

^ They do....

thoughs are mindblowing figures lol

I remember when I was in NYC a few months ago some hot dog vendors where selling other stuff like burgers and the going prices where anywhere from $5 to $10.

Only in Vancouver do hot dogs cost that much.

I only eat hot dogs at ikea or costco !

^ IKEA hot dogs FTW!!!!

hot dogs in new york are $1 each

that is with only one cart, imagine if he has more than one.

Wow... so he has to sell 150 per hour, or 2.5 per minute, or 1 every 24 seconds just to make back his rent? And that's for 12 hours straight...

everyone's business sense in here is FAIL....

no one is including the cost the these magical 10-50,000 hotdogs,buns and toppings, plus propane or charcoal.

he would need to make about 60-75K a month in $$ to make a living.

you havent been to NY then.

NY is higher on the list than Vancouver when it comes to eating out.

6 bucks US for a stinking little bowl of wontons, like really little! like the bowls u get when u order rice at restaurants...

I wasn't referring to food in general.

You do know people don't just buy 1 hot dog right? A lot of guys usually buy 2 at the stands. Trust me, in NYC Hot dog stands earn a decent amount man. There's just too many competition around town that makes some people get into the shitter.

im assuming he sells them for $6-7 and another $2.50 for a can of pop

Thats only if your downtown. If you want the real deal you'll have to go uptown. I realized that when I went last year.

No, my business sense is not FAIL.

I already did think about all of that, but I decided to NOT calculate that just to keep it simple.

Thanks for coming out though. You're the man now, dog.

Here's the reason why he went out of business

BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Thursday, May 22nd 2008

A wiener war outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art is pitting military veterans against the city's hot dog king and taking a bite out of the city budget.

The veterans launched the frankfurter fracas three weeks ago when they parked their upstart cart on the sidewalk outside the museum, citing a state law that gives veterans special vending privileges in the city.

"We're entitled to be here, so we're here," said Dan Rossi, 58, a Vietnam veteran from the Bronx who built the cart, emblazoned with the name of a Marine friend, Sgt. David Gonzales, who was killed in action in 1970.

Their stand, though, is just a few steps away from a green cart that has sold franks, water and pretzels outside the upper East Side museum for years - paying the Parks Department $326,000 last year for the right. That's more than any other location in the city.

The veterans charge just $2 for a hot dog and $1 for a small bottle of water, leading the established cart and another nearby cart that pays the city $250,000 a year to drop their prices to match. The older carts charge $2 for water, however.

"Clearly, [Rossi] was taking business away from them. How much we don't know, but quite a bit," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. "They finally asked to be let out of the contract."

Now the Parks Department is putting the spots out to bid again, recognizing that it might not rake in the same kind of revenue again.

"This is the No. 1 bid spot. That's why we're here," said Jason Sharpe, 48, a veteran from Woodhaven, Queens, who was working behind the grill Wednesday. "Columbus Circle would be a good location."

Thomas Makkos, the pretzel and wiener magnate who owns two Metropolitan Museum carts and many others in Central Park, would not talk about the dispute.

Behind a Makkos grill, though, longtime hot dog lady Iona Dumitru, 60, of Sunnyside, Queens, said the vets may soon cost her a job.

"I'm working for this company more than 20 years, and maybe now I lose my job because my boss can't pay rent like crazy anymore," she said, looking at the new cart. "He's a veteran. But he's got a lot of places in New York he can go."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...#ixzz0NelGw4BY

Wow... sucks to be the non-veterans.