Fans remember sliding onto a vinyl stool along the counter at Coney Island Sandwich Shop for a chili dog and a shake.<\/p>\n
They remember hitting up the St. Petersburg diner with their parents, grandparents and friends. They remember the casual, no-frills attitude of the place, the friendly service and the sign on the wall that let them know they\u2019d be charged an extra five cents if they dared to order ketchup.<\/p>\n
Many of them also remember Gail Kelley, who worked at the restaurant for 29 years, 14 of them managing the spot, greeting guests and \u2014 most importantly \u2014 tending to a constant simmering pot of chili.<\/p>\n
Coney Island has been closed since the pandemic, but message boards and social media sites list tributes to the iconic restaurant and patrons still flock to the comments sections to share memories and lament the loss of St. Petersburg\u2019s oldest family-run restaurant. The bad news, as most devout fans already know: Coney Island Sandwich Shop never reopened. The good news? The chili dogs are back and making the rounds in a food truck popping up across Pinellas County.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The food truck has been popping up outside Pinellas County businesses, including several local breweries.<\/p>\n
Photo by LUIS SANTANA\/Tampa Bay Times<\/p>\n
Kelley, 65, and her daughter, Christina Kelley, 37, are the force behind 2 Chic\u2019s Chili \u2014 a 14-by-8-foot trailer emblazoned with the St. Petersburg skyline and Coney Island\u2019s vinyl barstools. From the confines of their restaurant on wheels, the duo serves the beloved chili-topped Coney dogs with finely diced onions and yellow mustard.<\/p>\n
The pair launched the food truck in July 2024, roughly three years after Coney Island Sandwich Shop closed. The restaurant shuttered in March 2021 after both Christina \u2014 who also worked at the spot for 14 years \u2014 and a cook got sick with COVID-19.<\/p>\n
At the time, owner Hank Barlas told the Tampa Bay Times he didn\u2019t know when he\u2019d reopen the restaurant but was hopeful it would happen someday. Despite pleas from regulars and a few business offers, that never happened.<\/p>\n
Barlas\u2019 father, Peter H. Barlas, opened the restaurant \u2014 then called the Coney Island Grill \u2014 in 1926 at 250 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. A Greek immigrant, Barlas came to St. Petersburg during the Florida real estate boom. Over the years, the spot became a stomping ground for famous baseball players and politicians, and fans flocked for the popular Coney dogs made in the tradition of Jackson, Michigan, where a snappy frank would come topped with a thick, saucy chili, yellow mustard and diced onions, all served in a steamed bun.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A photo from 2019 shows fans waiting in line outside of Coney Island Sandwich Shop in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Times FILE PHOTO<\/p>\n
Kelley started working at the diner in September 1992, after Hank Barlas, who was a regular at another restaurant where she worked, recruited her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHank was a great person to work for,\u201d Kelley said. \u201cI loved my job \u2014 it was more of a family than a job, and the customers were great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over nearly three decades, Kelley saw customers fall in love, get married and have children. And then she watched the same children grow up and start families of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 29 years I got to know a lot of people,\u201d she said. \u201cWorking 60 hours a week was not work because I enjoyed it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the restaurant closed, Kelley said she approached Barlas with an offer to take over the restaurant, but he \u201cwanted to keep it in the family.\u201d In the interim, she took a job at El Cap, another St. Petersburg institution with a loyal fanbase. Some of her regulars from Coney Island Sandwich Shop followed Kelley to her new job, where they\u2019d sometimes ask for two chili dogs and a shake as a joke, she said.<\/p>\n
It was clear that the Coney dogs still had a huge following, Kelley said, and after some long discussions with her daughter, the two decided to launch a business of their own.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The chili dogs are made with the same recipe as the ones served at the iconic Coney Island Sandwich Shop, which closed during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
Photo by LUIS SANTANA\/Tampa Bay Times<\/p>\n
Barlas let Kelley in on his family\u2019s decades-old recipe, and she\u2019s kept it close to her heart. She\u2019ll let on that she uses \u201cno tomato products,\u201d just a combination of spices and ground beef that\u2019s been mashed thoroughly to create a thick, sauce-like chili.<\/p>\n
Kelley said she\u2019s had to tweak the recipe ever so slightly to adapt to the limitations of cooking inside a trailer. At the restaurant, the pot of simmering chili was never turned off, but she said she can\u2019t leave the gas on inside the truck 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
She assures her patrons it\u2019s still the same beloved chili, just made in smaller batches.<\/p>\n
Kelley also serves the same coleslaw recipe, a sweet and creamy slaw that\u2019s made with finely chopped cabbage, and a selection of other dishes including \u201ckraut dogs,\u201d burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, chili bowls, fries and tater tots. Pretty much everything can come topped with the spot\u2019s signature chili, if desired.<\/p>\n
Hank Barlas died in 2024. The original Coney Island Sandwich Shop space remains vacant, though the property has been listed for rent.<\/p>\n
For now, the mother-and-daughter duo have been bringing 2 Chic\u2019s Chili to local breweries, including Outcast Brewing Company in St. Petersburg, and Rapp Brewing Company in Seminole, along with a number of businesses and private events, like weddings and birthday parties. They list their weekly locations on Street Food Finder.<\/p>\n
At some point, Kelley said, she and her daughter might entertain the idea of opening up a more permanent brick-and-mortar restaurant. But for now they\u2019re happy running their truck all over town, and delighting in the moment an old regular from Coney Island Sandwich Shop swings by to say hello.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans remember sliding onto a vinyl stool along the counter at Coney Island Sandwich Shop for a chili…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[101716,101715,11754,596,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-225159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-chili-dogs","9":"tag-coney-island-sandwich-shop","10":"tag-covid-19","11":"tag-pinellas-county","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}