Mike's Main Street Franks
 Seville, Ohio        Date of Visit  01/05/13         Website Unavailable

Following a spate of suggestions for burger joints, Steph’s Dad mentioned a new hot dog spot in nearby Seville and we were looking for some afternoon noshage, so here we are at Mike’s Main Street Franks. Steph thought it was funny that I had remembered the place having two names in it…the second being franks…I still remember it that way.
 

Standards On The Table
 

I tried to find their website prior to going and once again after; it generates an error due to web access being denied. If it ever gets fixed you can find it here…http://mainstreetfranks.com/.

A small place with a counter separating the kitchen from a few tables. When we walked in we were greeted by both ladies working there, and a gray haze. At one point the older of the ladies came out to apologize for their fryer which was apparently turning some dirty grease into a tableau of Los Angeles at rush hour.

The younger of the staff waited on us and she was sweet but could use a little training including making sure everything on the ticket makes it to the table. They were nice enough to not just remove it from the bill but to scratch one of the hot dogs as well. They seem more interested in making customers than making sales which is always nice.
 

We ordered Chicken Dumpling Soup, mac + cheese, chili cheese fries a regular dog and three specialty dogs. The mac and cheese never made it to the table so I can’t tell you much about that. The soup was strange. It was thick, loaded with thick dumplings and strings of chicken. We were told to be careful about the temperature but we needn’t have worried. It was clear from the tell tale beeping, door slam and uneven pockets of heat the soup had just come out of the nuke box of death. It appeared hot, but it weren’t, you have to stir stuff out of the microwave or let it sit for a bit before you can determine how hot it is. The whole mess tasted oddly chickeny (good) and othery (maybe not so good). Steph said it tasted like tuna. Could be, but there was definitely something else going on which wasn’t an improvement. Maybe it was the smoke?

Then there were the chili cheese fries. I was instantly frightened when they hit the table due to their distinct visual similarity to the basket of sweet horror from Crawford’s Dairy Isle. If you see the picture you can see the same neon tubes of cheese sauce atop a comparable looking chili. The chili wasn’t more than standard at best but it was miles above Crawford’s and worked much better with the cheesy goop. So, lunch isn’t really going all that well and all we have left to pin our hopes on are four hotdogs.
 

The first bite was a regular hot dog with mustard and ketchup. We’ll call it so-so. On the up side they toast all of the buns which I appreciate. The dog however is lack luster with no discernible snap and little flavor for an all beef number. At this point I was guessing we were out of luck and we very nearly were. The first specialty dog was the Mike’s Outlaw with coney sauce and slaw. You were supposed to get an option of regular or spicy slaw but we weren’t offered and were brought what I’m assuming was the regular. It wasn’t bad. It was just out of whack. The coney sauce and slaw didn’t balance each other in any way and our lunch was defiantly sunk.
 

Oh. But wait. There were two more dogs on the table and since I definitely wasn’t finishing the first two, I might as well learn what I hated about the other two. The Rueben Wrangler is the same toasted bun and dog but this one was rolled in corned beef and Swiss cheese then topped with kraut and thousand island dressing. Been there done that, didn’t get the t-shirt. This was a dog of a different color however. Everything the coney sauce and slaw failed to do on the outlaw was masterfully accomplished on the Rueben. I think what really made it for me was the substantial amount of melted Swiss and enough corned beef to lend the dog something of note. Kraut and dressing brings it all together and made me happy we had travelled to Seville. It took a while to get to anything above average so it was surprising this wasn’t to be the best.
 

The High Plains Drifter is rolled in ham and topped with BBQ sauce and pineapple. Where the name comes from I can’t fathom but the ham serves a similar function to the corned beef in the Rueben but the tropical sweetness and tartness of the pineapple is layered with a sweet and smoky (I think it was the sauce) BBQ sauce which had just enough kick to make it interesting.

I don’t know that I would trust Mike’s to do much but the specialty dogs and likely not all of those but after our final two I would certainly give them a chance to do that. Actually, there aren’t that many on the menu, most of which are beans or coney topped so there are only a couple more I would be interested in trying.

There is a dessert case with a kitschy sign but no desserts. We almost stopped next door for pie…but we will do that soon. Amazing, how we haven’t run out of restaurants.