In the summer of 2020, Ravenna resident Cory Rabatin only had a hot dog cart, two tables and a tent to promote his new food business, The Wiener Guy. Four years later, The Wiener Guy has become one of the most sought-after food trucks in Portage County.
“I get told all of the time we make hot dogs fun. I can tell just by the way people come up and interact with us; it is just a fun environment. Everyone is happy,” he told The Weekly Villager on June 27. “We have a few grumpy people but not many of them.”
The Wiener Guy food truck has become so beloved by the residents of Portage County that Rabatin is booking two events per day at least twice a week. The food truck has already filled up its calendar until October.
The Wiener Guy also sells tacos and sausages, but Rabatin said he wants to take things further and is making preparations to open a taco food truck sometime next spring. He has already come up with several new ideas on how to prepare tacos because he has not seen a lot of street tacos available around Portage County.
Rabatin said that he developed a love of food when he followed his mother into the kitchen when he was a child. He helped her prepare all of the big meals for family get-togethers such as Thanksgiving and Christmas.
When he was 19, he was working three jobs in three different restaurants working in the dining room and in the kitchen. Rabatin said he originally planned to attend Stark State University and pursue a degree in filmography and broadcasting but he felt that food was his calling.
After he was laid off from one of his jobs in the winter of 2019, the 2010 Ravenna graduate decided it was time to go into business for himself. He decided he wanted to open his own food truck and wanted to create a business name that was memorable and came up with the name The Wiener Guy with his son.
“I knew I wanted to do hot dogs,” he said. “I already had the menu made and I knew I had to make it funny. You were either going to get offended by that or you would be happy or laugh at it, but you would probably always remember that and that is what I wanted to do.”
As far as he was concerned, while anyone could buy a hot dog in Portage County, none of them were made the right way, as businesses and vendors only used the bare ingredients. He conceptualized a menu that offered 30 different condiments and 20 different types of hot dogs. He said that having eaten at so many restaurants as a kid, he had a good idea of what tasted good.
During the summer of 2020, Rabatin officially launched The Wiener Guy and even though it was in the middle of a global pandemic, it became an instant hit in Portage County.
“They were just pumped because you could not go anywhere or do anything and you had to wear a mask, that was one place you did not have to wear a mask,” he noted. “I wanted to bring something new to the area and it is working. It has been fun.”
News of The Wiener Guy spread throughout Portage County and to this date, the business has done approximately $300,000 in sales and has developed a large social media following as well.
The Wiener Guy is central to Ravenna because that is Rabtain’s hometown but has also caught on in Portage County communities such as Streetsboro, Garrettsville and Kent. Rabatin said that in the last two weeks that The Wiener Guy has visited Garrettsville, the food truck has sold out in three hours.
Becoming a popular food truck in Portage County has meant a great deal to Rabatin and he has made sure to give back, often times donating leftover food to the fire departments, police stations and the homeless.
“We are always trying to give back and that is why we have a buy 10, get one free thing and a lot of times we will just give people stuff here and there too,” he added,
In addition to having built a successful business from scratch, Rabatin said his other motivation in wanting to grow The Wiener Guy is to make sure that his four children have an opportunity when they are older.
“I am building this for them so they hopefully don’t have to work for anyone else and hopefully they want to do it with me,” he said. “Pretty much everything I do is for them.”
