When Benjamin Galaz was 10 years old, a stranger arrived in Nacozari de García, a mining town in the Mexican state of Sonora where he lived.
It was a food vendor named Rolando Mendivil, who was serving a new kind of hot dog: bacon-wrapped, grilled and served in a baguette-like bolillo roll under a layer of pinto beans, onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise and salsa, with mild güero chiles on the side.
Galaz loved them, and started hanging around the stand after school.
“I was a good customer, I was always helping him — that’s how I learned how to make them,” said Galaz, now the owner of the Tucson, Arizona, restaurant BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs, where he serves up to 1,000 of the “Sonoran hot dogs” daily.
When he started the business in 1994, shortly after moving to Tucson, he was among the first to introduce the hot dog style to the city. The reception was enthusiastic.
