If it’s unclear from the dancing weenie mascot or the food cart’s colorful signage, Glizzys isn’t standard Cleveland carnivore fare. On the corner of Elite Smoke Shop’s unassuming asphalt parking lot in the city’s Bellaire-Puritas neighborhood, Rudy Kovach and Laurisa Raimondo serve some of the tastiest, most over-the-top frank creations in Northeast Ohio.
“I used to have dogs from the hot dog man over on Lorain,” says Kovach, emptying a case of wieners into the cart's steamer. He’s wearing a Cleveland Guardians hat that’s sun-faded into a washed-out brown instead of blue. “You could only get mustard and ketchup. So I wanted to have more options.”
More options for sure. A few loaded creations appear on a curated menu of unconventional flavors. The Flamin' Hot elote glizzy ($7) is topped with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, bacon crumbles, cilantro, corn, mayonnaise and chili powder. Dougie’s bacon-wrapped glizzy ($7) brings the heat, with diced jalapeno and a secret Sriracha-boosted Glizzys sauce. The “B.Y.O.G.” (Build Your Own Glizzy, $6) is stacked with cheese, sauerkraut, chili, bacon crumbles, onions, barbecue sauce and other condiments.
All this from one tiny restaurant on wheels.
Three hours before arriving at the lot, Kovach makes his daily ingredient pickup run, while Raimondo, his fiancee, cuts vegetables and sorts sauces and toppings. Then, they head out to set up shop. On a windy, drizzly spring morning, they unload the cart from the back of their SUV.
They’ve got it down to an art. They sweep away puddles on the ground, tie their garbage can to the fence, boil water in the cart’s reservoir, hang up their chip selections and put out their menu. Six minutes later, the final piece, the Glizzys umbrella, pops open.
A couple of early-bird customers arrive; Kovach tells them to wait while the hot dogs cook. They form a line. Minutes tick by. It’s windy and cold. Still, the line grows longer.
Business is going well.
That’s a relief for Kovach, who lost his former construction business, Altruistic Painting, during the 2020 pandemic. As renovation jobs dried up and the couple’s funds dwindled, Kovach found inspiration for his next venture through video games: specifically, a “glizzy” hot dog character skin on Fortnite.
Buying a cart outright would have been too expensive, so Kovach used his construction skills to build his own. He set up in the backyard of his father’s Bellaire-Puritas house and pieced together the modular metal box.
After finally applying for permit applications to get the cart in operation, Kovach experienced another tragedy when he lost his father.
“The week that he passed away is the week we got denied all our locations,” Kovach says. “I took two months from life off. Then, we moved in his house, and then I got back to it.”
After the break, Kovach and Raimondo pursued Glizzys again, and with the help of neighborhood watch members, got permits approved to be stationed in their own community. Since then, they’ve given back with promotions like punch cards, free hot dog days and a PlayStation raffle.
It’s a modern business; it's even listed on food delivery platforms. “We’re the only hot dog cart on DoorDash,” Raimondo says with a laugh.
This fresh face to the classic hot dog cart game in Cleveland is, not surprisingly, soon expanding. Kovach built a second Glizzys cart, complete with the same weenie-shaped logo on the front, and is actively seeking a location for it. He plans to open a food truck and brick-and-mortar store. (“That is not 100% yet, but it will be before winter, I’ll tell you that,” Kovach says. “I’m not standing outside in the winter again.”)
Like their elote dogs or bacon-wrapped franks, expect their future restaurant to be something new, different and full of flavor.
“We want it to be an experience,” Raimondo says. “We don’t want a regular restaurant where you walk in, you get your food and you leave. We want it to be something to remember.”
RELATED: 3 Cleveland Hot Dog Carts to Try
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