Coney Island Hot Dogs has been on Southbridge Street since 1918, run by four generations of the same Greek-American family. The neon sign out front — a giant hand holding a hot dog — has barely changed. Inside, the small dining room is unchanged in spirit too: tile floor, wood booths, a counter facing the steam table.
The order: a Coney with the works (steamed hot dog, mustard, raw onions, the house meat sauce) and a milkshake or a Coke. There is nothing fancy here and it does not pretend to be — it is one of the few unbroken threads connecting the modern city to its working-class industrial heyday.