Nice to have a decent hot dog place in Leesburg again, but I was disappointed in some of the execution and end product in ways that should not happen in a $7 or $9 dog.
The place is tucked into a hipster brewery setting in the shopping center with the movie theater just south of art 7 in Leesburg. Parking is adequate (garage nearby). The signage is somewhat difficult to see driving past, as parked cars sometimes obscure the sign. She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) and I decided to give it a whirl because we were Vienna Beef-deprived and needed a fix. We went there about 4 pm on a Wednesday night.
The space is large and shared with several restaurants- you basically grab somewhere to sit and get what you like to eat. Lucky Dogs offers several different kinds of dog, plus some other food items as entrees. We chose a Classic, a Chicago, and a DC half smoke. The hot dogs are produced in Chicago by the legendary Vienna Beef, home to the essential ingredients for the good hot dogs. They were well cooked, and served on the correct poppyseed rolls as meant to be. The sausage was on a potato roll with various goodies piled on.
The classic was fine, but two things stood out with the other two: the rolls were either overtoasted or had been sitting too long under a warmer, and there was not enough fixings added to really give the desired effect. There were hard spots in the rolls that should not have been in a Chicago hot dog, or a chili sausage. There was insufficient mustard and neon relish on the Chicago, and the celery salt necessary for a proper Chicago dog was completely absent. This is Virginia so they may not be aware of the One True Way for making Chicago dogs, but they should be able to look it up and correct it. The half smoke sausage had almost no chili ( less than a tablespoon max) or mustard and was pretty much flavorless. The classic needed more kraut and mustard - it seemed like they were trying to limit the amount of toppings.
Dogs were overall good - tough to totally screw up with good base ingredients - but really needed a heavier hand with the toppings to pull it over the top.
Price for 3 dogs and two cans of soda was about $25 - on the higher side for what we got. Space was VERY LOUD - music really needed to be lower.
I liked it, but it was ultimately disappointing because of the lack of toppings. Will probably try again, but ask for more goodies next time. read more