‘Best wieners in town.’ Downtown Lexington hot dog stand is a late-night hit
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Big Blue Wiener is a late-night hot dog stand that operates in downtown Lexington.
- Menu options include the popular mac-attack dog, BBQ slaw dog and chili cheese dog.
- Owner and operator Chris Price runs the stand on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Saturday night is about to turn into Sunday morning in downtown Lexington, and the action is happening.
Patrons spill in and out of bars surrounding Courthouse Square. College students clad in blue and white fill the sidewalks. The buzz from a prime-time Kentucky football game means the party still has a few hours left.
Amid all the bustle — as the vibrant hum of conversation meets the piercing noise of traffic — a common refrain can be heard: the desire for late-night food.
“A hot dog sounds pretty good right now,” a passerby notes as midnight nears.
Good news. Chris Price is here for that.
Price — a 39-year-old who was born in Lexington and grew up in both Paintsville and on the Gulf Coast of Alabama — is the owner and operator of Big Blue Wiener, a mobile hot dog stand that sets up shop from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m each Thursday, Friday and Saturday along Main Street and in front of Fifth Third Bank Pavilion in Tandy Park.
“Hot dog carts need a lot of foot traffic,” Price explains.
Price’s consistent and creative offerings — along with his affable personality — have positioned Big Blue Wiener as the go-to spot downtown among bar patrons, college students and even former UK basketball stars who are craving late-night and early-morning eats.
Currently, Price is pushing out 800 to 1,000 orders across the approximately 15 hours he’s open each week. (Big Blue Wiener’s hours can vary based on downtown foot traffic.)
Soundtracked by the rhythm of Lexington nightlife, there’s an artistic flow to Price’s movements behind the Big Blue Wiener counter. He’s a one-man crew, and with precision his right hand builds each order: transporting toppings, transferring condiments and dressing dogs to each customer’s satisfaction.
Price estimates he can serve four hot dogs a minute, if needed.
“It’s just a lot of practice,” Price said of dialing in his service routine. “A lot of cold, dark nights. A lot of hours logged.”
What’s on the menu at the Big Blue Wiener hot dog stand?
A visit to Big Blue Wiener comes with a steady line thanks to the promise of scrumptious simplicity.
Price’s straightforward menu has traditional options such as a classic hot dog, chili cheese dog and Polish sausage, along with specialty fare like the uber-popular mac-attack dog (a hot dog topped with mac and cheese, bacon crumbles and best enjoyed with a drizzle of barbecue sauce) and the BBQ slaw dog (which features barbecue pulled pork and coleslaw atop a hot dog).
He also moves plenty of walking tacos, a bag of Doritos that’s cut open and stuffed with chili, cheese, lettuce and sour cream. Free toppings that are available include jalapenos, relish, sauerkraut and crushed Doritos or Hot Cheetos. Drinks and bags of chips are also sold at the stand.
All Big Blue Wiener menu items are $7 or less.
There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes work that goes into the stand’s success. Price estimates his work week can stretch to 60 or 70 hours when he factors in other events, like catering opportunities, which the stand is available for.
Those events showcase Price’s capacity for producing hot dogs. At a recent fraternity bid day at UK, Price served 550 hot dogs in four hours.
Price’s dedication to growing the Big Blue Wiener brand is shown through customer loyalty, especially with the college-kid demographic. Big Blue Wiener sweatshirts, T-shirts and hats are popular items, and Price is about to shift his merch sales online after previously housing them in the top shelf of his stand.
“Best wieners in town,” one customer exclaims after picking up their order.
You can count at least two former UK basketball standouts among Big Blue Wiener’s fans. Ex-Cats Doron Lamb and DeAndre Liggins stopped by the stand when they were back in Lexington this summer to play on Kentucky’s alumni team in The Basketball Tournament.
That was a particularly exciting moment for Price, a lifelong UK fan.
“I wake up thinking about it, and I go to sleep thinking about it. What can I do to make this faster? What can I do to make this better for my customers?” Price said. “… It is such a pleasure serving those guys down there. It is fun. I love interacting with them. It’s a hoot, man. There’s never a dull moment. It is probably one of the best jobs on Earth.”
Big Blue Wiener hot dog stand is ‘therapeutic’ for its owner
Price — who tows the Big Blue Wiener stand to its downtown home in his well-traveled Ford Focus — first developed an affinity for hot dogs as a child at his local Dairy Queen in Paintsville.
“Their kind of claim to fame is a foot-long hot dog with sauce and slaw. And man, I grew up on those things,” Price recalled. “I could hear them calling out the orders from my house.”
Price also drew on his relationship with his father, Vince, who died in 2011, when deciding to go into the hot dog business.
After working in retail management overseeing Speedway convenience stores, Price bought a small cart in 2015. He sold about 50 hot dogs on his first night downtown and operated the cart as a side hustle of sorts for about eight years.
Then, Price’s life “crumbled” in 2023. That downturn included deaths in his family, mental health issues and Price entering rehab for alcohol addiction.
On the other side of all this, Price returned to the hot dog game after about a year away.
“I just made that my focus during my sobriety and just kind of powered through it. It was almost therapeutic,” said Price, who’s now been sober for more than two years. “… I just put everything into it. One week (business) was good. I was like, ‘Man, that was a really good weekend.’ The next weekend, ‘That was an even better weekend.’ And it just kept going like ‘Boom.’”
Quality hot dogs are key to Big Blue Wiener’s success
Price’s company, Big Blue Eats, owns a commercial kitchen, fittingly called Big Blue Kitchen, that’s used for food prep and storage for the stand. This means Price has the ability to expand beyond just hot dogs in the future.
But for now, the focus is on the dogs. And Price is happy to explain what differentiates Big Blue Wiener from its competitors.
“The quality of the hot dog matters,” Price begins, before explaining that Big Blue Wiener uses Nathan’s Famous all-beef hot dogs on a steamed brioche bun. “You can go to the grocery store and get any hot dog, but there’s something about a Nathan’s hot dog. It’s the process of cooking the dog, too.”
Price’s consistent presence next to Tandy Park is another major reason for his stand’s success.
Rain or shine. Cold or warm. Big Blue Wiener is there. An oasis of bread, cheese and meat when you need it most.
“I kind of built-up that base over time and developed a really good rapport with my customers,” Price said. “I’ve got so many returning customers. That’s Big Blue Nation there, that’s UK students. And I love it, man. I want to be Big Blue Nation’s hot dog. That would be fantastic.”
Big Blue Wiener
Where: Downtown Lexington, on Main Street near Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park and Fifth Third Bank Pavilion.
What: Hot dogs and walking tacos.
Hours: 10 p.m.-3 a.m. Thu.-Sat.; Hours may vary.
Online: thebigbluewiener.com and on Instagram @bigbluewiener
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
