What inspired the creation of James Coney Island?
The inspiration that created James Coney Island in 1923 on Walker Street in downtown Houston was a part of the great wave of Greek migration to the U.S. – 343,000 people between 1900 and 1919 – who fled the economic desolation caused Greece’s 1893 bankruptcy and a crash in the price of currants, then Greece’s main export. Many of them passed through New York’s Ellis Island and heard about or visited Coney Island, later borrowing this name for their hot dogs according to one legend. Meanwhile, outside of New York, the Coney Island name evokes and entirely different hot-dog tradition. In Michigan, “Coney Island” doesn’t mean an amusement park, but one of an estimated 500 diners in the Metro Detroit area alone that serves Greek food and “Coney dogs” – hot dogs smothered in “Coney sauce”, plus mustard and onions. Far from the Detroit area, Houston’s own “James Coney Island” was founded by two Greek immigrants, James and Tom Papadakis. The two brothers flipped a coin to name the restaurant and James won. They too were influenced by New York’s Coney Island.
James Coney Island recently rebranded and updated its logo. Why does the Houston based hot dog spot want to be known as JCI Grill?
We don’t really use the term rebranding but rather like to refer to our strategy at JCI as refreshing the brand. The name “James Coney Island” is still used on our logo and signage. This year JCI is celebrating our 95th year in business. In the fast paced ever changing retail business, 95 years is eternity. While we at JCI are not trying to be trendy rather we are just trying to keep the brand from becoming stale. Our last big push on remodeling and refreshing our restaurants was in the late nineties. It was a huge success. However, around 2009 we had lost our momentum and sales began to slide. We noticed a big shift in our customer base getting older and not eating with us as regular as they use to. And with the boom of competition we were not attracting the younger base of customers who are attracted to fresher concepts. We were irrelevant with potential customers under the age of 45. We knew we had to do a full top-to – bottom brand review and consider that we might have to do a reboot of our concept.
A statement said the restaurant wants to give customers a “modern contemporary dining experience.” What does that mean? It’s a very slippery slope between operating a nostalgic brand that is a local icon with lots of fans that don’t want change but are not regular customers anymore and operating that same brand that is suffering to attract new customers. The writing was on the wall that if we don’t do something we might not make it.
The James Coney Island president told the Houston Chronicle that they are “trying to stay relevant.” How is the 90-year-old restaurant trying to say relevant? Refreshing an old brand is a very difficult task. We wanted to be brave and not boring. We wanted to keep the legacy of our Coneys and Chili menu items while improving our other menu offerings to with a variety of hot dogs, better burgers, sandwiches, onion rings and salads. We hired several local chefs and we went to work in our JCI Test Kitchen. We improved and added these other menu items to provide our current and future customers with more variety as to improve their frequency of visits. It also could improve our night time business and to eliminate the “veto vote” . The “veto vote” is when there is a group of people who want to go eat atJCI and someone it the group does not want to because they don’t eat hot dogs. Other quality menus items that appeal to the larger group give us the chance to get the whole group dining with us. We also have improved the ordering experience with digital menus that are at eye level not looking up over a cashier like at fast food restaurants. We have Wi-Fi. We have a good selection of beer and at most locations we have local craft beers on tap. Our new dining room remodel uses warm colors and a variety of seating options from booths, chairs and bar level community tables.
What is the success of the Nolan Ryan Grand Slam Sliders — the beef sliders with toasted King’s Hawaiian rolls, American cheese, caramelized onions, mustard and pickles?
The Nolan Ryan Grand Slam Sliders – the sliders with toasted King’s Hawaiian rolls, American cheese, caramelized onions, mustard and pickles has been a real homerun for us. The combination of the toasted sweet rolls with theother ingredients creates a flavor profile that is just delicious. At JCI we really want our customers to enjoy the experience of the meal. We like staying to our tried and true roots. No pretention. Just good old-fashioned eating.
What is your go-to dish on the James Coney Island menu? My go-to dish on the JCI menu is the cheese coneys and the Frito pie. The James Cheeseburger is right behind.
See the story in our June Issue of Swoon Memorial Magazine on page 45!
