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Clare & Carl's Texas Red Hots meets the following criteria for TAUNY’s Register of Very Special Places:
The neon sign says “Texas Red Hots,”; the menu inside says “michigans”; just across the nearby lake you can see Vermont. Confused? Then you must be from out of town. For Clare and Carl Warne built this small roadside stand in the late 1940s to sell hotdogs to summer visitors at nearby beaches and camp sites, students at the local state university and a large contingent of airmen and their families at the neighboring United States Air Force base. While serving other popular items, this eatery–and several others along Lake Champlain–gained their fame from the michigan, a steamed hot dog served on a special bun with a secret ground meat and tomato sauce and chopped onions. The recipe’s origin and name are the stuff of local legends, but the nickname of a short order cook transplanted from Detroit who brought it here may well be the reason for both. To this day, Clare & Carl’s keeps the car hop service that made it popular a half century ago.
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This simple structure has long been a roadside summer attraction for Plattsburgh residents
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Owner Terry Spiegel and employees in the interior of Clare & Carl's
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The glass brick wall at the entrance to Clare & Carl's was a popular building material when the restaurant was built in the 1940s
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Customers enjoy a summer lunch
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Longtime employee Carol Bucci is one of the regulars' favorite carhop waitresses at Clare & Carl's