Tubby Dog born out of slow Tuesday nights at the Night Gallery

Hot dog lovers of a certain vintage can find comfort at Tubby Dog, where bands like Blondie and Devo are often cranked on the stereo and the lineup of old-school stand-up video games — including Frogger, Asteroids and Space Invaders — are a quarter per play.

Owner Jon Truch was born and raised in Calgary, and after graduating from the Alberta College of Art and Design 2002 as a sculpture major, worked the bar at the Night Gallery on First Street S.W. 

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(Those who have been in Calgary awhile may remember Ten Foot Henry's, which was in the space before the Night Gallery. It has been revamped and is set to re-open this weekend.)

Tuesdays were slow, and so in an attempt to draw more customers in, they started giving away hot dogs.

"That little hot dog machine, it fell off a truck one day and landed in my lap," Truch said, motioning to a tiny 7-11-style hot dog rotisserie in the corner amid his collection of vintage packaged food curios.

"I started having hot dog parties and doing goofy stuff in my studio." Soon, he moved it to the bar at the Night Gallery. 

Slow Tuesdays a time to experiment

"No one goes out on Tuesday nights. So we set it up on the bar, started with basic toppings, and then every week we'd add something different," he said of his then co-worker Arlen Smith (now manager at the Palomino), who helped him add outrageous toppings and give them crazy names. 

"It started out as the worst night of the week, and Arlen and I got it going so it wound up being crazy busy," he said of hot dog night, which boosted Tuesday night bar sales from around $300 up to $5,000 or $6,000 a night.

"So we started taking it a bit more seriously, started looking for a space."

Ten years ago, Jon decided to expand his operation to 17th Avenue.

He opened Tubby Dog with the help of a few of his four siblings, designers who now live in New York and Los Angeles.

A niche to fill

"That's part of the reason I like burgers and hot dogs so much," he says. "My sisters have been living in L.A. since I was about 15, and I've been going to visit since then.

"Calgary has come a long way when it comes to food, but for a long time you couldn't get a good burger or hot dog in town. I'd go to visit and then come back and tell everyone about the hot dog and burger stands you'd see all over."

The space is decked out with the dancing hot dog posters they would hang out on Tuesday nights beside the DJs at the Night Gallery, glass cabinets full of vintage packaged foods ("I've always been obsessed," he said), a screen on the back wall that's likely to be showing 80's cartoons, and rows of video games circa 1981.

Most of the names of the hot dogs on the menu are the same ones they had at the Night Gallery, including:

• the PBJ - peanut butter and jelly topped with Cap'n Crunch cereal
• Sumo - Japanese mayo, wasabi, pickled ginger, seaweed and toasted sesame seeds
• Sherm's Ultimate Gripper - a hot dog wrapped in bacon and deep fried, then topped with ham, homemade chilli, cheese, mustard, more bacon, hot peppers, onion and a fried egg

'None of this was planned'

A few years ago, noticing a lack of good tacos in the city, Jon started making tacos on Tuesday nights, preparing everything from scratch.

"Calgarians travel to Mexico a lot," said Truch. "They know good tacos. But you couldn't find many good ones here.

"We do everything ourselves: cook the meat, simmer the beans, make the pico de gallo and guacamole, and fry the chips."

Because they're time-consuming, he gets fresh corn tortillas from Richard at Unimarket. "I get all my ingredients from him," he Truch said.

Following the popularity of the Tubby Taqueria, two years ago Jon ventured into the burger realm, making In-N-Out and Shake Shack-style burgers on Wednesdays — one classic offering with melty American-style cheese on a soft bun, and one weekly creation in Tubby Dog style.

(And here's a secret: if you ask, they will make you the corn dog that all corn dogs aspire to be. Ask for "special fries," and you'll receive the crinkle-cut fries they reserve to serve with their burgers on Wednesdays topped with cheese, bacon and mayo.)

They're licensed (yes, now you can get a beer while you play Ms. Pac-Man) and often have live music and other events, like gaming Thursdays, when they haul out classic video game consoles and live stream. 

"It was all random. None of this was planned. It was just a goof off thing," said Truch.

And those of us who love to goof off (and eat well) thank him for it.​