Happy Dog

Cozy environment with a nice ambience

I love this place. It’s really chill, all of the people who work there are really nice, and I love that it’s vegetarian friendly. Good for sitting in, or calling ahead to pickup.

Apparently the staff here doesn’t like people in their establishment. I work management in the service industry and would never allow these attitudes in my staff. Super inappropriate. Band choice was great, but both encounters from the bar staff and front of house door guys was unpleasant. As if they don’t want any customers to come there. Was super rude to me. Probably won’t be back.

The Happy Dog was another «Best Thing I Ever Ate» spot, and also a Michael Symon recommendation. This time, though, we didn’t get his favorite menu item of hot dog toppings — peanut butter, Sriracha, and relish.
Firstly, the menu is really fun — pick your toppings and sauces on a nice checklist, and hand it over to the bartender.
To share: fries and tater tots
His plate: hot dog with mustard, pickle, vodka sauerkraut, and more mustards on the side
Her plate: hot dog with caramelized onions and Jamaican jerk mustard mojo
Overall, the sauces were really good, but we were underwhelmed by everything else. These are steamed hot dogs, and we would’ve probably loved this food if they’d been grilled. The steamed texture and lack of grill flavor was just not appealing after a bite or two, not to mention that they cooled down super quickly.
The tater tots were too greasy, and tasted too much like fryer oil.

These folks have the dog and tot experience down. Fast and friendly with great music bookings and sports on the TV. Always a good value and you can easily find parking, even though we often walk when it isn’t weather unconscious. They don’t need another review from me, but I like this place quite a bit and will miss it when we move. Never forget Hamburger Thursday in the Underdog. They had a retro-​gaming night set up the last few times we did this You know the legacy consoles with Mario Kart and Mortal Combat etc. Pinball tournaments weekly. Place is a cool as it gets.

I almost feel bad holding at four stars for Happy Dog, but feel that its many charms are held in check by fairly high prices for a dive bar.
So, many positives here: it’s the got that postwar-​diner charm that about half of West Side Cleveland dives have, it’s got pinball, free parking, occasional live music, a cool jukebox, a really solid selection of crafts and imports, and friendly, competent servers, some of whom are themselves local musicians.
And then let’s talk about this bar grub: the main thing is the hot dog, available in beef or veggie form (the latter premade, but definitely good). You order via a card full of check boxes, letting you add pretty much as many toppings and sauces as they can fit on the damned thing. (Forget about picking it up; unless you’ve got ninja-​like dexterity, you’re going to need a knife and fork for these.) Options range from sriracha to fried eggs, saurkraut to garbanzo bean chili and Spaghetti-O’s, the latter in case you’ve decided to supplement your alcohol with that other drug everybody does these days. It’s about the most fun experience of this kind of food that you could ask for. Same goes with the tater tots: they’re good if fairly standard until you load them up with the weird and wonderful assortment of add-​ons (charged per item for the tots) and then dip them in the wide variety of tasty sauces like thai chile – none of this catsup, ranch and blue cheese nonsense holding you back.
But $ 6 for an a la carte hot dog is a bit rich for the ‘Land, as is the $ 6-​$ 8 most of the craft brews run. I like Happy Dog, dig its rock n’ roll ethos, and will happily visit again next time I’m in town. But I feel that it’s just not quite five-​star value.

I love the ability to customize all aspects of your meal. You have so many options to make your perfect hot dog, or go a little crazy with a peanut butter and fruit loop hot dog (Check out Michael Symon’s favorite — chunky peanut butter, siracha, alien relish). Not to mention all the sauces you can get, unlimited choices! I believe it’s about 50 options of homemade toppings (again, unlimited!) The cost is completely reasonable. $ 6 for hot dog with your choice of toppings and sauces. $ 3 for tater tots with unlimited sauces and then additional toppings like cheese sauce and chili for additional $ 1. Great beer selection as well! Plenty of micro brews. I HIGHLY recommend the chimichurri sauce for the tater tots… My favorite! Also, the service was great!

The palace of hot dogs is Happy Dog. Every flavor combination under the sun can be had here, all the sauces taste house made.
I personally really dig that they have a truffle mustard and some spicy asian based sauces as well.
Don’t think id be adventurous enough to try fruit loops or spaghetti Os unless Im baked out of my mind but if thats your thing go for it!
The dog itself is excellent, bun absorbs the flavor combo you choose. Pick the alien relish! The only thing Ill say is they can get a little more creative with the offerings than just dogs, fries n tots, potato salad/​coleslaw. Maybe add a bad ass chilli. I get thats part of the simplistic appeal but generally when I think of a hot dog or burger joint I gotta think malts, shakes, etc.
Anyhow all in all a nice hole in the wall joint.

A fun, quirky little spot and a 4-​star for what it is. I wasn’t as impressed as I was hoping I was going to be, but for the price and being that it’s a hot dog, it’s definitely right. I don’t really know how you can make a hot dog «gourmet» but I am assuming this is as close as it can get. I definitely don’t get the hype as much as other people play it up, but I’ll be back!

These hot dogs and fries are extremely overrated bar food.
Let’s start with the service. From what I could tell, there were three main servers. The two that served our table were very neutral. I will say the only plus is that they kept our waters full. It was blatantly evident that they didn’t like their jobs.
Now…the food. I will admit that this place has a unique and large selection of toppings. I enjoyed the checklist in which the toppings are presented. And before I go any further, I think the sauces we ordered were very good (the garlic aioli, habenero, and secret fry sauce.) But that was honestly the best part.
It’s clear to us that most of these toppings (if not all of them) are easily mass produced, stored, and then just thrown onto the hotdogs. For example, we both ordered caramelized onions on our dogs… and it came out as a soggy mess. Are you kidding me? Do you know what caramelized onions even are? Oh. And they were cold. Now that I think about it, the entire meal lacked any sort of heat, besides the tator tots.
I honestly think that there’s an excellent concept here… with better service and better ingredients. Right now, this is just another sports bar with «fancy» ingredients thrown onto hot dogs. I’ve had gourmet hot dogs before. This place doesn’t even come close.
On a positive note, this place is very cheap. The price point is perfect for bar food, so all in all, I didn’t mind it that much. I was just very underwhelmed by the food and the ambience.

Why 5 stars? Because this is how hot dog eating should be.
— — —
With fully customizable hot dogs with tons of niche toppings/​condiments to choose from, every hot dog experience since Happy Dog has been ruined.
Some of my favorite toppers are as follows:
Spaghetti O’s, «Froot» Loops, Mac-​n-​Cheese, Andy Capp’s Hot Fries, Peanut Butter, and a sunny side up egg. There are 18 freaking sauces that you can choose from as a condiment, mostly consisting of ketchups, mustards, bbq sauces, etc.
I don’t know how anyone could say that they don’t like Happy Dog, unless you just don’t like hot dogs in general.

Happy Dog is my jam. We go most times that we are in Cleveland and we enjoy it every time.
Pros:
*Straightforward pricing. You don’t end up with a $ 10 hot dog because you add lots of stuff that you can’t keep track of that’s all different prices. It’s a flat price for a hot dog and you can get allllll kinds of toppings.
*Easy menu to navigate. It’s a checklist and you just check off what you want.
*Delicious hot dogs. Their toppings are also well-​seasoned and taste good.
*You can get lots of toppings on your tater tots or fries and the pricing there is also straightforward.
*Full bar, baby! And a cool bar, to boot. Most of the room is a long, oval bar. It’s got a naturally-​retro vibe (that sort of ageless, classic bar thing where you know it probably hasn’t changed much since your parents sat at a similar bar) and I even heart the sign out front.
The only things that could use any improvement are some of the menu descriptions. I don’t know what «alien» relish is and I don’t really want to ask what every single thing is that has a creative name. Having a menu-​menu with descriptions scattered around the bar in addition to the checklists would be awesome. That’s not most of the items, though – most things are things you can recognize and are delicious. I especially like getting the chorizo chili on anything. (Chili cheese tots yeaaaaaaah!)
Everyone is also really friendly when we go. We’ve never had bad service and it’s lovely.

Happy Dog, your selection of dips and toppings makes me happy but your staff seems a bit unhappy…
My most recent visit was with several others in my party and luckily seating wasn’t difficult to snag during the lunch rush.
Prior to arriving at the Happy Dog, I sat at home, at work, in bed, etc. trying to figure out what toppings I wanted on my all-​beef hot dog. Finally, after much careful deliberation I decided to get the pimento mac and cheese with hot sauce drizzled on top. Goodness, did I choose wisely, YUM!
As for the tator tots, can you really go wrong?! Tator tots are gifts from the gods. Crispy, hot and filled with potato goodness. I selected the chipotle ketchup and chimichurri sauce, but thankfully there were so many of us that I am pretty sure I tasted ALL of the dips offered.
The only snags I had was that the mac and cheese was a bit on the colder side and our server/​bartender seemed a bit discombobulated.
I’ll be back when I get another hankering for tots and dogs, but please do not come here if you’re expecting an extensive menu… it is meant for all of us all-​American hot dog loving fanatics.

This place was a pleasant surprise today! My fiancé and I had just got out of the Indians game (we won of course) and we were looking for a cool little joint to get some food. My buddy said check out Happy Dog. My first reaction was, «Wow, that sounds like a Vietnamese restaurant!». But, I love creative little niche places like this.
I’ve been to Dirty Frank’s in the Columbus area and while this is a similar restaurant please don’t be fooled. Happy Dog is waaaaaaay better than Frank’s and honestly, I think it’s cheaper. The pricing is unbelievably fair, I honestly felt like I was taking advantage in the end. Customize your dog, add whatever you want or even all of the toppings (which I think was well over 20) and no matter what is 6 bucks.
Next time I’m in Cleveland, trust me, I’LL BE BACK!

What an awesome concept. For around five bucks you can get a juicy wiener (heh) Or a veggie dog with literally any topping you can think of. Are you drunk or high? Great: Get frootloops on your hotdog! Once I got peanut butter, relish, and siracha on my hotdog (apparently Michael Simon’s pairings) and it was DELICIOUS. Who knew peanut butter would taste so good on a hotdog?! Oh, and GET THE TOTS.
It’s definately divey inside and kinda smells funky. Needs major renovation, but really, who cares where you are when you choose hotdogs this good as your dinner item.
All in all, this place just rocks.

The Happy Dog East/​Euclid Tavern is a kindly cousin to the other Happy Dog on the West Side. The dogs are good quality and delicious, the toppings, tots and fries are premo, the bar well stocked and the service is good. .Along with that, this one being a watering hole for the CWRU crowd, there are no shortage of bands as well as talks and mini-​symposiums for the nerdy crowd (present company included.) I recently got to sit in as, amazingly, a bar full of people cheered not at a band or a randy comedian, but at the fact that we’d finally reached the planet (oid) Pluto with a probe.
The Happy Dog East makes me happy:)

Great place… when there’s not a band playing too loud. Great service usually. Parking is decent and they have a Bike Box.

Uhhhhhh I have been a lifelong hater of hot dogs. So of course when I requested to go to Happy Dog after Edgewater Live, my hot dog loving sister obliged. I just really needed to finally try a place I’ve heard so much about! Well, let me list the why’s of giving them four stars:
1) Price. So cheap! $ 6 hot dogs and $ 3 tator tots or fries with whatever toppings.
2) Location. Hole in the wall places are just my favorite. Sketchier the better.
3) «Meat» variety. They are so vegetarian friendly! I’m a meat eater, but I do appreciate when restaurants care to cater to as many people as possible.
4) Topping variety. When there are so many delicious toppings I always have to take a breather and remind myself that piling on everything could be disastrous.
5) Topping quality. Every single topping was prepared and tasted great. I absolutely loved my marinated crimini mushrooms, «everything bagel» cream cheese, and top secret fry sauce.
However, reasons why I didn’t give them five stars:
1) I still don’t really like hot dogs.
2) The bartender/​server never asked us to sign our receipt. Pretty sure she was drunk as well (based off of additional comments/​behaviors/​overall confusing conversation). We had to ask them after our meal to dig up the receipt so we could sign it.
3) No live music! But that’s my fault, I need to figure out their schedule for music.

Woke up craving a chili cheese dog and lucky for me I had a willing partner to indulge on this delicious idea with me later that same evening. We showed up at Happy Dog a little after 5 and got ourselves a booth. This time around I enjoyed the atmosphere so much more because there was no band playing or crowd to fight through; I could actually talk to my date without yelling across the table! But, if we are going to be honest here there was not much talking, more so there was shoveling of hot dogs, tater tots topped with mac & cheese, and craft beers down our gullets.
I keep messing up at this place because I want to try something different so I order this fancy concoction of a hot dog and immediately regret my choice. Thankfully my date got the chili cheese dog and offered to switch with me. So the lesson here, for me at least, is stick with what you know tastes good! No need to step outside the box and put craziness on a perfectly good all beef wiener. However I do recommend putting the mac & cheese on those tots, mmm so good.
Our bill came to $ 25 for two hot dogs, two beers, and an order of tots and I have no complaints about the price. No issues with the staff either, they were all friendly and attentive. I would definitely come back.

What’s not to love about a restaurant with vegan dogs and tots?
I stopped in on a blustery Saturday afternoon for lunch and was overwhelmed by the smell of a cleaning solution. I know that some older establishments can get a little funky, but all I smelled the entire time I was there was this cleaner. Not the delicious tots or anything else that might have been more pleasant.
Service was fast and the people who waited on us were really nice. I had to use my phone to look at the online menu to figure out what was and wasn’t vegan, but that was no biggie. I ordered a vegan dog with chili, kraut, and alien relish. I honestly might have liked my «dog» more if I’d just had the bun. I like Field Roast sausages and all, but… it kind of overpowered the toppings.
The tater tots were… tater tots. I ordered a bunch of different vegan dipping sauces to try out and I especially like the BBQ sauce.
Overall, I think this is a decent place to grab a quick, gluttonous lunch. Not sure I’d eat here all the time, but… I’m happy that CLE has a hot dog joint with some vegan options.

Wunderbare Eckkneipe mit Bühne auf welcher lokale Grössen Blues, Folk und Rock zum Besten geben.
Berühmt ist das Happy Dog für seine, naja, Hotdogs eben und die unendliche Liste der dazu passenden Toppings.
Diverse Biere vom Fass, auch deutsche Flachenbiere (zB Jever) sind hier in netter angenehmen Atmosphäre zu haben.
Immer wieder gerne hier!