While Otto’s is a full-scale meat market and smoke house with sausages of all kinds to take home and cook, it is also a place to eat lunch. When the outdoor grill starts up late in the morning, a smoky sausage aroma perfumes the area for blocks around – an aroma sure to lure fans of the frankfurter.

Whether you choose an ordinary beef-and-pork hot dog (with snap to its skin that is far from ordinary) or an extra-large sausage made from chicken or pork, you might just find yourself amazed, as we do, by just how much better these fresh, homemade wieners taste than factory-made ones from the supermarket. The grandchildren of Otto Eichetopf, who opened this neighborhood meat market in 1927, maintain the highest standards of old-world sausage making. The beauty of the links they make for lunch is that you really taste the meat of which they are made. Spices are used to accent, not overwhelm, the primary ingredient. They are served in soft buns with a choice of onions, kraut, relish, mustard, or ketchup for you to apply yourself.

Otto’s appeal has a lot to do with its casual ambiance. Dining facilities are nothing more than a bunch of wooden tables arranged on the sidewalk outside, as well as a handful of places to sit indoors. It’s a neighborhood picnic every lunch hour. And by the way, the beverage coolers contain four or five dozen different kinds of beer, including little-known local and imported brands.