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TOP JOBS

By GREG JUNEK
Business Editor

Forty years ago, Tyler residents welcomed a new culinary neighbor operating out of a strange looking building on East Fifth Street.

The restaurant — which was essentially a drive-through hot dog stand — gathered quite a following. Hot dogs, of course, were nothing new, but to its customers the food coming out of this place with a name nearly unpronounceable to some — Der Wienerschnitzel — was special.

For about the past quarter century, the eatery has been known by its current and more familiar name, Wienerland, but owner David Pessink said the food still tastes the same as it did 40 years ago.

“I had a guy the other day, he said, ‘Man, I have been away from Tyler 12 years, and this hot dog tastes exactly the same as it did when I left,’” he said. “I have heard that over the years. We cook our own meat, we make our own chili. Everything’s made to order.”

Pessink has been at Wienerland for 16 years, and has owned it for the last eight. The Genecov Group owns the tall, narrow A-frame building, but the name and recipes are Pessink’s.

From 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, the restaurant will have a “Wienerland Reunion: 40 Years of Hot Dogs” celebration, and it is inviting its customers to come with as many generations of family that they can muster.

Pessink said he has seen sales — and the number of vehicles in the service line — increase steadily over the years.

Tylerites received their first taste of the food from the drive-through hot dog stand when Ron Bolton established Der Wienerschnitzel in Tyler in mid-1968. He also opened stores in Longview and Texarkana.

The restaurant gained popularity, as more people enjoyed the tasty hot dogs and fries, chili-cheese fries and other offerings. It was also a restaurant that did not employ electronics to take one’s order; someone came to customers’ cars and took orders from them face to face.

Then, in the early 1980s, things began to change. Der Wienerschnitzel’s parent company decided to take the eateries in a different direction in food and service to make it similar to other fast-food restaurants.

“They wanted to revamp the buildings and go in with sit-down dining, change it up (to include) hamburgers and everything else,” Pessink said. “They basically got away from the entire nostalgia of Wienerschnitzel itself. … They were trying to change something that had become a Tyler icon. (Bolton) loved this business and the customers in this area so much, he decided just to keep it the same.”

For a while, the Tyler store did add hamburgers to its offerings, but discontinued them after realizing they did not sell well.

About a decade ago it did find a more profitable product — Mexican food — to add to the menu, but to long-time Tylerites, those menu items are also legendary.

Bolton had owned El Sombrero, a fast Mexican food eatery on the east side of South Broadway Avenue and south of Fifth Street, in a block now occupied by CVS Pharmacy. A few years after El Sombrero closed, its menu items were added to Wienerland’s selections.

“We decided to put in the Mexican food line from the old El Sombrero, and that went up to like 13 percent in sales today,” Pessink said. “So we now sell the tacos, nachos and burritos that used to be with the old El Sombrero, along with everything that used to be with Wienerschnitzel. It’s the same exact recipes. I tell people that and they say, ‘Oh, the old El Sombrero; I loved that place,’ and they hit on them Macho Nachos like you wouldn’t believe.”

From 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturday, the restaurant will celebrate its fourth decade.

Pessink said he would like to be able to gather enough customers together during the 40th anniversary Saturday for a photograph of people representing three generations of customers.

It might be possible, because he said he saw just that when the restaurant celebrated its 35th year.

“I had a give-away and I said, ‘Well, the next person who walks up here with three generations of Wienerland will get a such-and-such prize,’ and low and behold, this car pulls in and I recognize the whole family,” Pessink said. “I have families come through all the time — grandmother, mother, daughter and grandkids.”