Former hot dog place donates equipment to school
Hot dog — Trinity Christian School just received a real gift.
One with everything, you might say.
When Judy Haught retired this past spring, she was left wondering what to do about Haught Diggity Dogz.
That’s the hot dog place in Westover she owned and operated for years with her son, Scott, going back to the restaurant’s early days on the other end of Morgantown in Dellslow.
An informal search for a buyer led her to the most unlikely of suitors: Trinity Christian School.
Michelle Stellato’s son, you see (she’s the superintendent of the private, faith-based school in Sabraton), was a big fan.
He was crazy for the chili dogs and the slaw dogs, too — both made with Judy’s exclusive recipes.
And don’t get him started on the Frito pie with jalapenos and hand-cut French fries.
When the superintendent found out the place was for sale, she started thinking.
The turn-key establishment, complete with a loyal clientele (and those homegrown, proprietary recipes tossed in as part of the deal), could serve both as a learning lab and an effective marketing tool, she reasoned.
Students could master the rudiments of running a restaurant, from fry cook to accounting.
And Trinity could get right tasty with its fundraising.
The school’s wheelhouse is already in the neighborhood of the former, with its business enrichment classes that put its students on the front lines of commerce.
Every year, students in those classes run an in-school Christmas shop that stocks keychains, mini-tool kits, soaps and other stocking-stuffer type offerings for gifts.
Students order the inventory and do all the advertising and marketing for the enterprise.
They even ring up purchases while staffing the gift-wrap department.
Too short of a leash
Alas, though.
No deal on the dogs.
Previously unforeseen particulars, including the scourge of COVID-19 were among the reasons the restaurant sale didn’t happen.
“It was a disappointment,” Judy Haught said.
“By then, we had really gotten to know them at the school. We had become friends.”
She and Scott started talking.
“We could just give it to them,” he said.
Not the building — but all the equipment therein.
Which included the commercial-grade six-burner stove and large refrigerator. And the 36-inch griddle.
All that, plus the professionally engineered venting system.
Stainless steel. Gleaming.
Judy Haught preferred not to disclose how much it was all worth.
Call it, invaluable, a school superintendent said.
“We couldn’t get over the generosity,” said Stellato, who plans on integrating that equipment, so Trinity can finally have a full-service cafeteria.
Before, the school had been contracting with outside vendors for its lunches.
“Such good people. Such an amazing gift.”
Heinz 57 (dog)
“I’m excited,” Judy Haught said. “The school can use it, and maybe our legacy can keep going.”
Legacy, Scott Haught knows. Life-lessons, too.
Judy raised him and his brother as a single mom, keeping the household going while never missing a parent-teacher conference or a school event involving her boys.
That was on top of her demanding jobs in marketing and communications at Mylan Pharmaceuticals and Mon Health Medical Center.
“Everything I learned about life, I learned from her,” Scott Haught said.
“Everything I learned about hard work and customer service I learned from her.”
Well, almost everything.
The ketchup, he had to catch on his own.
That was back when Haught Diggity Dogz first fired up the grill in Dellslow.
“It was our first day,” he remembered.
The dutiful son tripled-checked everything, then quadruple-checked it, just because.
Then he hit the “Open” sign.
The hot dog matriarch, meanwhile, was composed.
And very much directed.
“OK, Scott. We’ve got everything, right?”
“Yes, ma’am, everything,” came the reply.
“Buns? Dogs?”
“Yep.”
“Grill and fryer good?”
“Absolutely. We’ve got everything.”
Then — he stopped.
“Everything but ketchup. I’m goin’ to Kroger. I’ll be right back.”
TWEET @DominionPostWV
