Episode slideshow

• The Roast Grill – challenge 17 hot dogs
  Home Page | Reviews: Citysearch | Yelp
  NewsObserver.com article about the filiming
  Art & Literature blog entry about the Roast Grill
• The Pit meal: pork BBQ
  Home Page | Reviews: Citysearch | Yelp
  A Food Network program was filmed last week according to the restaurant’s twitter
• Time Out Chicken – meal: shredded chicken sandwiches
  Home Page | Reviews: Citysearch | Yelp

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An episode of Man vs. Food was recorded in Minneapolis last weekend. A picasa gallery of Adam Richman attempting a meter long sausage challenge at Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit is available.

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NewsObserver.com has an article about the filming of Adam Richman’s hot dog eating challenge at the Roast Grill in Raleigh for an upcoming episode of Man vs. Food. Richman ate at least 10 hot dogs, but it is not reported if he reached his goal of 17 hot dogs. Jason DiMambro attended the recording and had to sign a non disclosure agreeement that he would not reveal the results of the challenge.

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A livejournal blog entry reports that a woman (not named) currently holds the top mark of 17 hot dogs in 90 minutes on the Wall of Fame at Spike’s Junkyard Dogs in Somerville (Boston). A eyewitness to the record attempt comments the new record holder was the previous record holder whose mark of 14 was broken when her husband ate 16. If that is the case, the LeFevres might have company in the ranks of competitive eating couples.

Another commenter says he encountered the record holder at Spike’s while another diner was attempting to exceed her total and she said “I hope you know that if you break the record I’ll just come in and rebreak it tomorrow.”

It is possible that the record reclamation was a response to the recent record attempt video posted on igreggor.com, but 15 hot dogs were consumed in that attempt and the previous record was 16 (each Spike’s location maintains its own record.)

An eatfeats post from November 2007 has a picture of a previous female record holder at Spike’s (who might be the current “top dog” as well)

update A 2+2 forum thread documents a 2007 trip to Spike’s. While the diners attempted to eat 6 or more hot dogs to get on the “Kennel Club”, the holder of the record (which was then 13 hot dogs) entered the restaurant and was photographed (picture on right).

Someone who has met the record holder describes her as “pretty cool, but amazingly tiny, like a white female version of Kobayashi.”

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• Gallery and video of the 42 inch pizza at Big Lou’s Pizza in San Antonio.
• The Heart Attack Grill segment was televised yesterday on CBS News’ Sunday Morning. I have not been able to track down an online clip.
• Video of an attempt at the Spike’s hot dog record in Boston. An unnamed woman is still was the record co-holder with 14 hot dogs in 90 minutes.
• Video of the pie eating contest for the case models on Deal or no Deal last Friday (Another video)
• Jo “Gavonne” Rose has a report on the Firehouse wings contest he competed in.
• Hatsuyo “The Witch” Sugawara eats 6.3 kg of (13.8 lb) of curry in 15 minutes. One of her competitors was the masked “Mr. Oh” who has a blog entry with some pictures from the contest.

update The Spike’s record challenger broke the store record with 15 hot dogs. Congratulations.

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• Videos and galleries of Birmingham and Memphis Krystal qualifiers available
• Brown students attempt Spike’s hot dog challenge
• Picture from eating contest held in Beijing during the Olympics
• Don Lerman gets an impostor on his own blog
• FutureFeed sees a “glass ceiling” in the fact that only 2 of the IFOCE top 50 are females (6 of the AICE top 50 are women)

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• Krystal qualifier registration opens at noon eastern (limit 3 qualifiers per person)
• Floria Lee an expected entrant at the Goya National Black Bean Eating Championship
• Video of interview with organizer of Saturday’s Baton Rouge, LA rib eating contest (purse $400). The ribeatingcontest.com URL mentioned in the interview does not work
• Arizona State women’s basketball team members compete in Battle of the Bone qualifier
• Blog entry about 3.5 lb Homewrecker hot dog challenge in West Virginia
• Signup info for the Taste of Hamburg-er eating contest on megamunch. Prize money will be based on the number of “professionals” competing.
• Malaysian article (in English) about the Singapore showdown

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The claim that a 90 pound woman was the only person to ever finish the Niner Diner’s challenge of a three pound burger with five pounds of fries adds another entry in the list of unnamed women who have reportedly done well in restaurants’ eating challenges which also includes:

The first person to finish the 9 pound Barrick Burger at the Plaza Casino in Las Vegas.

A yelp expedition to Spike’s Junkyard Dogs in Boston took a picture of the wall of fame in that establishment. A closeup of the “top dogs”, both females, on that wall follows after the jump. The hot dogs at Spike’s are reportedly larger than a typical hot dog.

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(From SuperSized Meals) A video of an unknown woman (Suzie ?) attempting to eat 25 hot dogs & buns in 15 minutes at the Alumni Grill in Wildwood, NJ has been posted to youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef6IFtYAwzM The spectators report that she finishes 15 HDB. Embedded video follows the jump.

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HamptonRoads.com has an article about Uncle Al’s Hot Dogs which mentions the restaurant’s hot dog eating challenge: a diner who can break the record of 22 hot dogs in 90 minutes will receive his or her meal free.

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MLive has a blog entry (for June 26) about the attempts to break the Rockford Corner Bar’s chili dog record last year:

Wolfe has tried to get Janus (who is ranked No. 7 by the IFOCE), Chestnut and others such as Patrick Bertoletti and Hall Hunt to come back and compete again, but it hasn’t come together.

“They are under contract, so it’s not that easy,” he said.

So, if Nathan’s Famous contest only lasts 12 minutes, and the Corner Bar allows four hours to eat your chili dogs, how long did it take for Janus to eat 43 1/2 of them?

“It took him the whole four hours,” Wolfe said.

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On March 13, 1982, Sharon Scholten (now Sharon VanDuinen), a petite 5’3″ and 110 pound 25 year old, broke the chili dog record at the Rockford Corner Bar by eating 42.5 chili dogs in four hours. That record would last for almost 24 years and only Tim Janus and Balinda Gould have been able to better that performance.

The archived article about Ms. Scholten provides some interesting background information about her feat:

Saturday looked to be a normal day until her brother-in-law Jimmy Scholten suggested that she try for the record

That was after she had eaten lunch – a Mexican pizza for two, a half order of nachos, four baskets of chips and an enchilada.

But she thought she’d give it a try. After all, she met the woman’s mark two years ago by swallowing 20 franks. And there wasn’t much else to do that night.

“We were just talking about it that afternoon,” she said, “It wasn’t something I planned. I didn’t think I could do it. But Jimmy told me he had bet $600 that I could do it so I thought I’d better try.”

It turns out Jimmy had no money riding on her meal, but his white lie was enough to get Sharon to break the record.

“I was upset,” she said. “I thought I had all this money coming. He told me I’d get 75% of the profit.”

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Kobayashi’s rival in “Man vs. Beast” is not the only competitive eating bear. Toonzone.net summarizes the pilot episode of “Utica Cartoon” by Fran and Will Krause which ran on the Cartoon Network in 2001.

When Dan Bear and Micah Monkey learn that they can get free hot dogs by beating the current hot dog eating record at their local diner, they are up for the challenge. Dan Bear reigns as hot dog champ by consuming loads of free hot dogs, continually beating his own record. For awhile he enjoys the free franks until beating the record becomes too much even for him.

The episode is availabe in quicktime format at frankrause.com (Low quality 16MB) (Medium quality 31MB) The clip is about 7 minutes long.

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Erik “The Red” Denmark has a blog entry on his attempt at his NFL playoff hot dog eating challenge, which he performed at the Seahawks-Cowboys game after receiving a ticket. Erik was able to get around the $5+ stadium hot dog prices.

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After trying to eat 40 hot dogs during Super Bowl XL, Erik “The Red” Denmark will attempt a challenge with more complicated rules during the Seattle Seahawks / Dallas Cowboys playoff game tomorrow evening.

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The website for the Rockford Corner Bar has been retooled. The hot dog “Hall of Fame” has been updated to list Tim Janus’ record breaking performance from March, but only three names are listed on that page. Janus is listed as the professional record holder while Balinda Gould is the amateur champion. Sharon VanDuinen’s (Scholten) 23 year reign is mentioned, but the article about her has been removed.

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(from Laura’s livejournal) While there has been a lot of attempts the Rockford Corner Bar chili dog challenge, there is another hot dog challenge in the northeast with a more modest all time record. All Spike’s Junkyard Dogs have a hot dog Wall of Fame Eating 6 hot dogs is required to get your picture on the wall and a T Shirt. The highest total on a Wall of Fame is 17 at the Thayer Street location in Providence. Eating 18 hot dogs or more will result in the restaurant picking up the tab according to this metafilter comment.

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At the request of Kevin Carr, I will not list any results from the Rockford Corner Bar unless I receive an email from an eater asking me to report his result (or he could just state his result in a comment.) I was originally going to list those results tonight unless someone emailed me today to not post his total. Thanks to Kevin Carr again for an excellent submission.

The Rockford Corner Bar has an online Hall of Fame, but no there are no links to it from the restaurant’s home page. All results are from 2003 and 2004 so it is apparently not being updated. No ranked IFOCE or AICE members are present in the online Hall of Fame. The highest amount is 20 chili dogs, reached by Kurt, Brian Johns, Nate McManus and Erin VanDeffelen

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Thanks very much Kevin Carr. Kevin made a trip north to Michigan yesterday to attempt the Chili Dog Challenge at the Rockford Corner Bar and try to learn the identies of the eaters who have recently attempted the record.

Kevin learned of four other IFOCE members other than Tim Janus who have recently attempted the challenge. All four eaters reached the 20 chili dog mark (at which point the meal is free) with two breaking the 30 dog level, but at least one eater vomited. I have omitted the identies of those eaters from Kevin’s report. I will list their identities tomorrow at 10 pm eastern unless they email ojrifkin@yahoo.com and request that his (they are all male) result not be posted.

In his report, Kevin mentioned that he is on standby for a Nathan’s qualifier spot. Spaces must be extremely tight if a ranked eater who competed in last year’s US Open is not guaranteed a spot.

Kevin emailed me this report:

REPORT FROM THE ROCKFORD CORNER BAR

After hearing the news of Tim “Eater X” Janus’s recent victory at the Rockford Corner Bar, I was naturally curious about the challenge. It was only a 5 hour drive from my home, so I thought I’d run up there and take the challenge myself. I’m on stand-by for a Nathan’s qualifier, and I’ve never eaten hot dogs in a contest, so I wanted to test my mettle so to speak.

Also, there have been conflicting reports in the press and the eating community about what’s been going on up there. Call it the writer in me, but I wanted to go to the source to get the full story.

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(Thanks Bob Shoudt) The Rockford Squire has an article about recent attempts to break the Rockford Corner Bar’s chili dog record. The majority of the article is devoted to the endeavors of three AICE members on March 9 ; Tim Janus’ earlier record breaking attempt is mentioned only in passing. The Rockford Corner Bar website has yet to be updated with Janus’ new record.

Updated March 18, 12:30 am – an article about Tim Janus can be found further down the page. Eater X also did a malt challenge and another pizza challenge earlier this month.

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speedeat.com reports that Tim Janus broke the Rockford (Michigan) Corner Bar chili dog record by consuming 43.5 chili dogs in 4 hours. If correct, this is the first time in almost a quarter century that a male eater has been the chili dog champion (Sharon Scholten ate 42.5 hot dogs in 1982 and Baldina Gould consumed 43 last December). The $500 bounty for breaking that record is no longer offered.

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