Editor's note: This story was originally published on Nov. 30, 2021.
Benny Galaz is the son of a miner. He grew up in Nacozari de Garcia, Mexico, a small town whose wealth was extracted from the copper, silver and gold deposits in its narrow hills. His dad would spend weekdays under the earth. As a manager, he would emerge on Friday night just to be called back in to handle an emergency on Saturday morning. Benny, off from school, would be permitted to tag along, transported through a shaft into a pitch dark world operating in parallel to, and fueling, the city of his mother.
There came a day when his dad asked to take him out of school to come to the mine. The CEO of the mining company was flying in from Mexico City. The CEO was bringing his son with, so Benny’s dad would do the same.
Benny understood this was not a typical visit to the mine when they were waiting outside. The young secretaries who were typically confined to desks and only seen from the waist up were standing in a line. He saw their beautiful skirts for the first time. Everyone was waiting around a big green circle with a white H in the middle.
The secretaries had to hold their hair down as winds picked up in an unnaturally confined space, like a tornado made just for them. Benny didn’t know what was coming down from the sky, but his father would soon tell him it was a helicopter.
The big man in a suit exited from the helicopter doors and embraced everyone, including Benny’s father. He shook Benny’s hand, and told his dad he should be proud. The boss’ son stood at a distance, “like he was judging us for being from the countryside,†Benny said. “But his father, the more important man, treated everyone like a friend.â€
“I knew from that day on that I wanted to have a helicopter,†he said.
Benjamin Galaz owns BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs and El Berraco.
Today, Benny is an important man. He wears crisp collared shirts that are patterned, appearing more casual than his ambition really makes him. When he was 21, he was selling a thousand Sonoran dogs a day out of a cart he named, in a pinch, with his and his wife’s initials. Decades later, he’s still expanding. As we spoke, he occasionally took a handkerchief out of his pocket to gently dab at the sweat on his brow throughout a conversation, recalling Marlon Brando.
Benny owns . The restaurant has two locations, one on the , the other on , with another on the way at Park Avenue and 19th Street. He also owns , a submarine-themed seafood restaurant. “I wanted something people couldn’t imitate,†he said. “Seafood is harder to copy than a Sonoran dog.â€
He is sensitive about this intellectual property because he staked his legacy to something that is replicable. “A Sonoran dog will always have the same ingredients. What makes it different is in the little details, the special methods each person brings. But principally it is something very simple and easy to recreate.â€
He first learned about Sonoran dogs as a kid in Nacozari, Mexico. He remembers very distinctly the day that the Sonoran dog cart came to town.
He was still a schoolkid. He would leave Nacozari to go to high school in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, where he was born. When he returned to Nacozari, he knew he wanted to make Sonoran dogs, too. When he put his cart into practice, though, he realized the town wasn’t big enough for two vendors, so he decided to take the concept back to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
“I thought, Sonoran dogs and carne asada, these are two things that were everywhere in my hometown and hard to find here at the time,†he said.
But when he got to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, he was confronted with the strict bureaucracy of the city health department. “Luckily, the director at the time spoke Spanish. He talked me through the process on how to run my cart safely. ‘You have to keep the beans at the right temperature, the bacon at the right temperature, or people can get very sick,’ the inspector told me.â€
“So I took the specs home and I used the side of a CD jewel case as a ruler to get the lines all straight,†he said. “I built out the cart with a water heater placed underneath the beans to keep them warm. The inspector was impressed, and Xeroxed my plans. Then, whenever anyone would come up to the inspector asking about how to get a hot dog cart certified, he would give them the document I made.†Benny told this story with some chagrin. He sees those specs as his own, and they are now freely and commonly plagiarized.
To make matters more sensitive, many of Benny’s former employees now run Sonoran hot dog joints of their own — a narrative that’s part Willy Wonka, part The Godfather.
“A man from my hometown came to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to open a hot dog restaurant on South Fourth Ave.,†Benny said. “I found out and came in to congratulate him. When I dropped by, he was very pale, like someone who just got caught. He was scared because he was located so close to BK, so he didn’t want to tell me. But I was proud of him for opening his own business. I wanted to talk to him about his ambitions, his dreams.â€
BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs has a human-sized statue of a Sonoran dog at their entrance.
The language of dreams comes to Benny from motivational speakers like Tony Robbins. He has been attending leadership conferences for the past six years and incorporated their messages into every conversation we had. It is natural for him to feel like these methods work, because he is already the kind of person the people who go to motivational speakers aspire to be.
“I bought a helicopter a number of years ago,†he said. “I used it on my ranch down in Sonora. My friends and I would use it to hunt wild boars,†he said. “But we had too much fun,†he said with a mischievous smile. “So I sold it.â€
In the not-yet-released documentary about BK that he commissioned, no helicopter is mentioned. Instead, the video imagines BK’s future at Park and 19th: fully automated ordering, with an account that will remember your preferences and make suggestions; software that films employee’s work for social media promotions and records each individual’s output in pounds of carne grilled like stats in a video game; drones that will deliver BK across town and eventually the country. It’s part of a campaign with the slogan #ThinkOutsideTheGrill.
“When I started, if you were brown, or Mexican, you couldn’t buy property north of 22nd Street,†he said. That isn't the case anymore, and Benny is proof of that. He has two restaurants above the line and is working on a third outpost. He imagines his influence extending nationwide, if he finds the right partners for franchising.
“A few years ago I was at a leadership conference in Orlando, and afterward I decided to go to Disney World. I had never been,†he said. “When I was at Epcot, this international theme park, I found a stand that sold the hot dogs of the world.
“I ordered a Chicago dog and asked the attendant which hot dog was their favorite. He said, ‘Actually, it’s the Sonoran dog, from ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.’ And I told him, ‘That’s me.’â€
Below are 26 spots on ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s south side and in South ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to get a Sonoran hot dog. Sometimes hours can vary between social media pages and Google listings, so check ahead of time. If we’re missing your favorite spot, let us know: elueders@tucson.com.
Check out the first part of this series, a list of midtown Sonoran hot dog spots, here.
Aqui Con El Nene
Location:
Hours: 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, closed Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Editor’s note: Their midtown ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ location is in our .
Aqui Con El Pariente
Location:
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 6-11 p.m. | 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday | 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. Saturday | Closed Sunday
For more information, check out their or call 520-273-2423.
BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs
Location:
Hours: Sunday-Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. | Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
For more information, check out their . Their central ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ location is in our .
Delicias Mexican Grill
Location:
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 7-2 a.m. Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Dylan’s hotdogs & quesadilla
Location: 4129 E. 29th St.
For more information, check out their  or call 520-448-8145.
El Chencho Hotdogs
Location:
For more information, check out their .
Pro tip: Ask and they might write your name on your hot dog with mayo.
El Guero Canelo's parking lot has a mural depicting their origin story around its perimeter.
El Güero Canelo
Locations: Ìý´¥Ìý
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. | Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, check out their .
El Kora Hotdogs
Locations: Lot on the southwest corner of | |
Hours: Irvington and Park, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily | Swan, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, 3-10 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday | Sixth, 1-11 p.m. daily
For more information, check out their .
El Movimento Hotdogs
Location:
Hours: Noon to 11 p.m. daily
For more information, check out their .
El Pacotote
Location:
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
For more information, check out their .
El Perro Loco Hot Dogs
Locations: and
Hours:
- Valley Road: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. | 2-11 p.m. Sunday
- 36th Street: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday
For more information, check out their .
El Teo Hotdogs
Location:
Hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday | 1-9 p.m. Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Hot Dogs Mercado
Location:
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 7:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.
For more information, check out their or .
Hermanos Hotdogs, Tacos
Location:
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily | Closed Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Hot Dogs Los Chipilones
Location:
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily
For more information, check out their .
JV Querobabi Hotdogs
Location:
Hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday | Closed on Sunday and first Monday of each month
For more information, check out their .
Pro tip: Their tree-shaded courtyard eating area is worth the haul to Drexel and Country Club. 50 cents off dogos on Friday.
La Carreta Rosa
Location:
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays
For more information, check out their .
Los Hacen Dogos
Location:
Hours: 5-11 p.m. daily | Closed Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Monster Sonoran Hot Dogs
Location:
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information, check out their .
Oop’s Hot Dogs
Location:
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 10-12 a.m. | Friday-Saturday, 10-1 a.m. | Closed Sunday
For more information, check out their .
Romero’s Sonoran Hot Dogs
Location: 5333 S. 12th Ave.
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 5-11 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.
For more information, check out their .
Ricositos Chile Dogos
Location: Southeast corner of
Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 9-12 a.m. Saturday | Closed Sunday
For more information, call 520-603-5393.
Sammy El Sinaloense Sonoran Hotdogs
Location:
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 3:30-10 p.m. | Friday-Saturday 3:30-11 p.m.
For more information, check out their or .
Editor’s note: There is a discrepancy between the Google Maps address and what’s on their Facebook page. For the right directions, go to the linked 4733 S. Campbell Ave.
Super Hotdogs Obregon
Location:
Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. | Friday-Saturday, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m.
For more information, check out their .
Tacos y Hot Dogs El Manantial
Location:
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. | Monday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
For more information, check out their .
Taqueria La Esquina
Location:
Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. | Friday-Saturday, 11-1 a.m.
For more information, check out their .
La Estrella reporter Claudia Bungard contributed to this story.