The Small Tennessee Gas Station Diner Serving Up Dolly Parton's Favorite Hot Dogs

Dolly Parton makes her home on an estate just outside Nashville, the capital of country music. But the beloved icon has never forgotten her roots in eastern Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains. She's written songs about her humble upbringing in a cabin in Sevierville, and built her theme park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, a short drive from where she grew up. She even has hometown loyalty when it comes to her favorite hot dogs, served by a small Sevierville diner that's inside a gas station.

Dolly spoke about Frank Allen Market & Grill in a 2010 Southern Living magazine interview, saying: "Everyone is always looking for a 'joint' to eat at that only locals know. Frank Allen's is a local Sevier County experience I love" (via TheSmokies.com).  She named the diner's slaw dog, a steamed hot dog topped with coleslaw, chili, chopped onions, and yellow mustard, as her favorite. The singer also talked up Frank Allen's to Delta Airlines' in-flight magazine, Sky, in 2015: "They have the best slaw dogs in the county, and you might just see my bus parked there as I pick up lunch."

Frank Allen's was first opened as a market by Allen and his wife Ernestine in 1953, but they didn't add a grill until 1961. The community fixture moved a couple of times before settling at their current location in a Marathon gas station, adjoining an indoor store area selling snacks and drinks. Allen retired in 1997 and handed the business to his daughter and son-in-law, until the family sold the business in 2017 to a Tennessee gas station convenience store chain.

Frank Allen's serves other hot dogs besides the slaw dog, including Nacho Dogs, Inferno Dogs with jalapeños, Bacon Cheese Dogs, and BBQ Dogs. The cheeseburgers are also loved by locals, winning The Mountain Press reader's choice award for best cheeseburger in Sevier county for many years running. Sandwiches are also on the menu, including a Pimento Cheese made with the classic Southern cheese that's actually from up north, a two-foot Super Grandaddy sub, and the Chuckwagon, with a beef patty made country fried-style.

Southerners like Dolly love their slaw dogs, one of America's many regional hot dog styles. The coleslaw, chili, onions, and mustard on her favorite from Frank Allen's are the standard ingredients. The warm, meat-based chili and cool coleslaw complement each other, but the balance of the spicy chili and sweet coleslaw has to be right.

Slaw dogs originated in West Virginia in the 1920s and because they were made with inexpensive and easily available ingredients, people there began eating a lot of them during the Great Depression. The state also has a claim to fame as the home of Hillbilly Hotdogs, where you can get hot dogs and get hitched. The slaw dogs later spread beyond West Virginia to become more broadly popular in the South. There are some variations in different parts of the region, such as one that tops the hot dogs with BBQ slaw, which has ketchup instead of mayo. Other variations hold the chili.