Coney Islands are a unique type of Greek American restaurant that originated at Todoroff's Original Coney Island in Jackson, Michigan in 1914. Two Coney Island restaurants later opened in 1917, including American Coney Island in downtown Detroit, established by Greek immigrant Gust Keros in 1917. Keros and his brother got into an argument quite soon after and split their restaurant into two parts--the present day Lafayette and American Coney Islands, which are next door to each other. Both restaurants are still owned by the descendents of the two Keros brothers.
Gust and Bill had a third, younger brother, Sotirios, who stayed in Greece. Sotirios's sons came to America, worked in Lafayette and American Coney Island, and eventually started a number of restaurants of their own, most notably Kerby's Koney Island, still owned by them today. They remain one of the few coney islands owned by their original families.
Typical menu
Two of the most popular items on the coney island menu are the Gyro and The Coney. Gyros or gyro (pronounced /ˈjɪəroʊ/, not /ˈdʒaɪroʊ/, Greek: γύρος "turn") is a Greek fast food. French fries are a common side dish. Sometimes the name is applied to the form of the sandwich (pita wrapped around filling) rather than to the filling itself, and sometimes the name "souvlaki" is applied to the sandwich.
The second main dish is a Coney Island hot dog, a hot dog with chili, diced yellow onion, and yellow mustard.
Coney Islands have developed a distinctive dining style that has been repeated in hundreds of different restaurants throughout the metropolitan Detroit area. Coney Islands often serve breakfast all day. The leading suppliers to Coney restaurants in southeast Michigan is Alexander & Hornung located in St. Clair Shores, and Koegel Meat Company, located near Flint, Michigan, which makes the preferred Vienna variety of hot dog for Coneys with natural casings and markets the Detroit variety of Coney sauce and the drier Flint variety of Coney sauce.
Growth of the Coney Island restaurant
Since the owner of the first restaurant did not trademark the name or business plan, other restaurants began using the same name and formula. Most Coneys in the Detroit area are still owned by Macedonian, Greek or Albanian immigrants and other menu items include gyros and Greek salads, as well as corned beef and Reuben sandwiches. Other fare is usually typical of a "greasy spoon." Depending on the restaurant, other Greek and Mediterranean dishes such as Shish Kebab, Souvlaki, Spanakopita, and Saganaki can be found at a Coney Island. These restaurants also carry other regional items such as the Boston Cooler, which is a float made with vanilla ice cream and Vernors ginger ale.
The many Greek diners in Buffalo, New York are similar in format to Detroit-style Coney Islands, even serving their own style of dogs, called a Texas Hot. Unlike the Coney Island restaurants in Detroit, though, the Texas Hot is not the dominant menu item in a Buffalo Greek diner.
