Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
Tail o' the Pup frankfurter and bun on the San Diego Freeway. Photo: Alison Martino.
The storied West Hollywood area hot dog stand Tail o' the Pup has been in storage in Torrance for seven years — until Monday. The stand's wiener and bun were placed on a flatbed and launched toward some kind of destination in Las Vegas for restoration. Alison Martino of Vintage Los Angeles was there to film the decamping for her growing web empire of all things vintage about LA. The pup opened in 1946 at the original La Cienega Boulevard location near Beverly and moved in 1985 to San Vicente. The stand closed in 2005 to make way for some sort of development that last time I looked still hasn't happened.
If you were a customer from the 70s on, you might recognize owner Eddie Blake in the warehouse in Martino's first video. Dennis Blake, the son and another familiar face around Tail o' the Pup, died in December. Martino's second video below captures a snippet of the old dog cruising down the 405.
The pup moved out of storage:
And on the 405 freeway:
Sigourney Weaver at the original Tail o' the Pup, by Douglas Kirkland:
The Go-Gos at the original, from the Tail 'o the Pup Facebook page:
The later location:
