A dry spell turned into a line out the door for one restaurant owner after a customer posted a touching photo on social media, reaching thousands.
Scott Hosek and his wife have owned Spirals: Hot Dogs & More in Norman, Oklahoma, since the onset of the pandemic. In October 2023, Mr. Hosek suffered a stroke, and his medical bills began piling up. Additionally, a winter dry spell made matters worse.
“Our restaurant is far enough back off the main trail that if you don’t know we’re here, you kind of forget,” Mr. Hosek, who has since recovered, told The Epoch Times.
On a quiet December day, Mr. Hosek greeted and served two customers who were wearing military uniforms: Nick Chappell and his colleague from the Oklahoma Army National Guard. He then retreated to the front door to look out for new customers. Touched by what he witnessed, Mr. Chappell snapped a photo of the candid moment.
Mr. Hosek went back to them to ask if they were expecting any other friends, and they replied with a “no.”
The post went viral, and the next day, Mr. Hosek had a line outside the door waiting for him.
From making as little as $200 on a slow day and up to $600 on a busy day, Spirals started making $2,000 to $3,000 daily with the influx of new customers and has been that way for the last three weeks.
“Every day I was buying more food in order to keep it going,” Mr. Hosek said. “My restaurant seats about 35 people. ... We have people against every wall, up against the walls three deep, and a line going out the door.”
However, it took the restaurant owner a couple of days to realize that it was Mr. Chappell’s post that was bringing in new customers. Mr. Chappell later went back to Spirals to offer to take the post down, but Mr. Hosek refused.
“I had no idea what we were getting into!” he said, adding that Mr. Chappell has returned for several interviews and has been “very generous, very kind, very humble.”
For Mr. Hosek, who has degrees in theology and a background in construction and cheffing, Spirals is the first eatery he has ever owned and operated. He believes the overnight turnaround was the result of divine intervention.
“These are things that we pray about every day,” he said. “My wife and I ... because of the stroke and because of all the bills starting to pile up, [were] just like, ‘Listen, we may have to consider closing. We may have to consider getting out of this.’ And God says, ‘Okay, that’s an option, but I’ll show you what I can do.' So yeah, I would call it divine intervention for sure.”
Mr. Hosek and his wife got Spirals up and running amid the pandemic, after buying the unit next to their thrift store, thanks to a $10,000 grant from the city of Norman. They decided to quickly give back to the local community, as people struggled to adjust to life after COVID, by placing a sign inviting customers to leave their troubles at the door and “just relax, enjoy yourself, and have a hot dog.”
The Hosek children thought their parents had stepped off the deep end when they opened the hot dog eatery. Mrs. Hosek then suggested naming the hot dogs after their kids, and the venture became a family affair.
According to Mr. Hosek, their most popular hotdog is the bassdog.
“It’s named after my daughter-in-law: her last name is Bassin, and she was also a bass player in a band,” he said. “It has cream cheese on the inside with the protein of your choice, and is topped with chili, white cheddar sauce, and then shredded cheese and crumbles.”
The Hoseks also have a new hot dog on the menu which includes cream cheese, jalapeños, and bacon called the Thunderbird, named after the Thunderbird Unit patch for the 45th Infantry to whom their knight in shining armor, Mr. Chappell, belongs.
