{"id":32714,"date":"2023-07-20T23:15:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T05:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/meet-cortezs-hot-dog-handyman\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:02:17","slug":"meet-cortezs-hot-dog-handyman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/meet-cortezs-hot-dog-handyman\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Cortez\u2019s hot dog handyman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Handy
Handy Hot Dogs set up in front of the Colorado Welcome Center at Cortez on July 14. (Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal)<\/span>Colette Czarnecki<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When Cortez resident Anthony Miezell, 46, saw that no one sold hot dogs at a high school baseball game he attended over a year ago, he took matters into his own hands. He opened up Handy Hot Dogs.<\/p>\n

Originally from Louisiana, Miezell moved to Cortez eight years ago with his wife, who got a job in Shiprock, New Mexico. They met online and decided to begin their life together in the region.<\/p>\n

Before the move, he owned a construction company in his Deep South state for 20 years and retired because he wanted to try something different. This different \u201csomething\u201d has worked out for him because working construction for years wore his body down. He constantly felt pain, and now he\u2019s found relief working the food cart.<\/p>\n

Still, Miezell\u2019s construction history remains in the name \u201cHandy Hot Dogs,\u201d where \u201cHandy\u201d refers to \u201chandyman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since he opened up in May 2022, business grew from challenging growing pains to obtaining a busy schedule during Montezuma County\u2019s busy months.<\/p>\n

Miezell is swamped with events. Depending on his schedule, he also sets up shop at concerts, fairs, Cortez\u2019s Colorado Welcome Center, Durango Organics and sports games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just been so many events lately that it\u2019s hard to schedule,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, just going out and setting up, clean the cart, you have to get everything. Prep work is a lot of work (which usually takes about two hours).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Handy
Handy Hot Dogs owner Anthony Miezell is ready to sell his fare at the Colorado Welcome Center at Cortez on July 14. (Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal)<\/span>Colette Czarnecki<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Connecting with people is one of the best parts about his job.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople love hot dogs and come up to chat,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve met a lot of great people in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most memorable interactions he\u2019s had as a hot dog entrepreneur is that he had an axle break and one of his customers, who is a welder, welded it back together. On top of the generous act of kindness, his customer didn\u2019t charge him. Instead, he gets free hot dogs for as long as he wants them.<\/p>\n

On top of his patrons\u2019 support, he also found community with other food vendors in the area. If one vendor needs help, it seems that other vendors will unsparingly share what they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not competition,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all want to make it great. We want each other to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

sports games lacked hot dogs, one resident stepped in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81899,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32714\/revisions\/81899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32714"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}