J.J.’s Coney Island | Polite Hot Dog | A Fall River Best

Polite Hot Dog Place

When you plan to take your dear old grandmother out for a meal, you might not consider going to a low-cost hot dog joint. The idea of a polite hot dog is incongruous. Places that specialize in wieners tend to offer a rough-around-the edges dining experience. Not so J.J.’s. “We don’t allow swearing,” proprietor Albano Medeiros once told a reporter. “We want families to come here. To offer a classier place.” To that end, the large street corner restaurant provides comfortable booths and tables. Those who desire a quiet cup of espresso can find it here. There are no counter seats.

All The Fall River Specialties

The menu doesn’t offer only hot dogs. Beyond weenie variations, customers come for chourico pie, stuffed quohogs, nachos, and bacon-and-egg breakfast.

Chris Ayers and Amy Briesch, who zeroed in on this place, said that the first time they came they assumed they should get some gaggers (localese for Coney Island hot dogs). Yes, they do lead the menu. But while waiting in line at the counter (service is tote-your-own), they noticed that a person in front of them got a chourico roll. It was a beauty. Sure enough, the kitchen did not procure this roll from Cheap-Eats Central. A lovely twisted pastry envelops a great lode of rugged, spicy sausage.

The Unique Hot Cheese Sandwich

If you seek Fall River’s unique hot cheese sandwich, put J.J.’s at the top of your itinerary. It only barely resembles an ordinary cheese sandwich. To make it, the chef takes a hearty scoop of warm, hashed cheddar cheese from the steam table. He puts it into a hamburger bun. Harmonized by a measure of the fine-grind, meaty sauce used on Coney Island hot dogs and a sprinkle of raw onion, the sharp cheese sings a vivid dairy melody.

Have You Had a Chow Mein Sandwich?

Come to J.J.’s for one more regional specialty beyond a polite hot dog: the weird, wonderful chow mein sandwich. A burger bun makes it only a nominal sandwich. It contains so much chow mein along with crisp noodles that you need utensils to eat it.