New York City / Hot Dogs
Best Hot Dogs
in NYC
From free at Rudy’s to $10 in a food hall. Every price, and which 24-hour claims are out of date.
Rudy’s free dog runs whenever they are open, and Gray’s Recession Special from 8am.
- 17 verified counters
- a dog from free
- franks from $3.25
- 2 genuinely 24-hour
The best hot dogs in NYC are Katz’s at $3.75 off the front griddle, Crif Dogs for anything bacon-wrapped, Emmett’s for a $6 Chicago dog done properly — and Rudy’s, where the dog is free with any purchase and the beer is $4. This is the cheapest category on the site and every price below is a real one, taken off the counter’s own menu or ordering platform in August 2026, because a hot dog guide without prices is useless. Two things worth knowing before you go anywhere: Gray’s Papaya is no longer open 24 hours — its own site says it shuts at 10pm most nights, and every listing claiming otherwise is stale — and Papaya King has moved, because the original building on East 86th was demolished. The range here runs from nothing to $10.
The short version
- FreeRudy’s gives you a hot dog with any purchase, and the house draft is $4. Still true in 2026.
- Best dealGray’s Papaya Recession Special — two franks and a drink, $7.50 including tax.
- Cheapest frankGray’s at $3.25, then Katz’s at $3.75.
- Stop believing thisGray’s is not 24 hours any more — it shuts at 10pm most nights. Chelsea Papaya is.
- Wrong addressPapaya King moved to 206 E 86th. The old building was demolished.
At a glance
Exact prices where the counter publishes them. Tap a number on the map to place it.
| Where | The deal or the price | Days | Hours | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rudy’s Bar & Grill | Free dog with any purchase; $4 draft | Daily | 8am–4am | $$$ |
| Gray’s Papaya | Recession Special $7.50; franks $3.25 | Daily | 8am–10/11pm | $$$ |
| Emmett’s | Chicago dog $6; $12 with sides | Tue–Fri | HH 5–6:30pm | $$$ |
| Frankel’s Delicatessen | Two dogs + a drink $12.50; single $6 | Daily | to 3pm | $$$ |
| Katz’s Delicatessen | Frank $3.75; knoblewurst $7.45 | Daily | to 11pm; 24h Sat | $$$ |
| Papaya King | The original frank-and-papaya combination | Daily | 9am–11pm | $$$ |
| Crif Dogs | Dogs $5.95–$9.95 | Daily | to 2/3am | $$$ |
| Nathan’s Famous | Original frank $5.99 | Daily | 10am–9/10pm | $$$ |
| Ray’s Candy Store | Dog, Belgian fries, egg cream | Daily | 24 hours | $$$ |
| Chelsea Papaya | Chili cheese dog; griddled franks | Daily | 24 hours | $$$ |
| Skippy’s Hot Dogs | The Wally Dog; dogs around $3.25 | Mon–Sat | 11am–4pm | $$$ |
| Bobbi’s Italian Beef | Dressed dogs $9.10; plain $6.76 | Mon–Sat | 11am–9pm | $$$ |
| Dog Day Afternoon | Chicago dog $9.50, chips included | Daily | 12–7pm | $$$ |
| Mile End Delicatessen | Hoyt Dog $10 on challah | Daily | to 8:30pm | $$$ |
| Glizzy’s | Loaded specialty dogs, about $10 | Daily | to 8pm | $$$ |
| Old Town Bar | Chili dog with fries | Daily | to 12/12:30am | $$$ |
| PDT | Bar-dressed Crif dogs; reservations only | Daily | 5pm–2am | $$$ |
Map: where these 17 spots are
The institutions are spread across Manhattan; the chef-driven ones are almost all in Brooklyn.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the detail and directions.
Free dogs, recession specials and real deals
Where a hot dog costs nothing, or close to it. More in best cheap eats in NYC.
Rudy’s Bar & Grill On now
Confirmed still true in 2026, straight off their own homepage: cheap beer and free hot dogs with any purchase. No minimum, no time window, no catch. Rudy’s Blonde, the house draft, is $4, and almost nothing on the taps goes past $9 — so a beer and a dog is four dollars, which is the best value on this entire page and probably in Hell’s Kitchen. Open 8am to 4am Monday to Saturday, from noon on Sunday, every day of the year. The honest caveat: it is free because it is a plain boiled frank on a soft bun, with mustard, ketchup or Tabasco and nothing else. This is bar ballast, not dinner. Treat it as a bonus and come for the $4 beer.
rudysbarnyc.com · See our Hell’s Kitchen happy hours
Gray’s Papaya On now
The Recession Special is $7.50 including tax — two griddled Sabrett franks with kraut and onions plus a medium papaya drink. Franks alone are $3.25, chili or cheese 75 cents. There is also a one-frank Local Special at $5. Two corrections to what you will read elsewhere. First, the Recession Special is no longer $6.95 — that was the 2020 revival price. Second, and more useful: Gray’s is not open 24 hours any more. Its own site says 8am to 10pm Sunday to Wednesday and 11pm Thursday to Saturday. Every listing claiming 24/7 is stale, so this is no longer your 3am move.
grayspapaya.nyc · See our Upper West Side happy hours
Emmett’s On now
The best chef-adjacent value on this page. A properly dragged Chicago dog for $6 — Vienna Beef, pickle spear, sliced tomato, diced white onion, neon green relish, sport peppers, celery salt, yellow mustard, poppy seed bun — or $12 with chips, fries or salad. No ketchup, and they mean it. The bar also runs Happy Hour & a Half, Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6:30pm, which is when to eat it. The honest caveat: the PDF menu on their own site is dated March 2024, so confirm the $6 before you count on it. Six dollars is right for this dog; it may simply be seven by now.
emmettsnyc.com · See our best pizza in NYC
Frankel’s Delicatessen
A single all-beef dog with mustard and kraut is $6; the Hot Dog Special — two dogs plus a drink — is $12.50. The reason that is the order: hot pastrami on rye here is $25.50, so the dog special is how you eat at a very good Greenpoint deli for half of what the room costs. The honest caveat, twice: it closes at 3pm, so this is a daytime plan and not a dinner; and $12.50 for two dogs and a drink is about two-thirds more than Gray’s charges for the same idea. You are paying for the deli, which is a fair trade at lunch.
The institutions
The counters that have been doing this for fifty to a hundred and ten years. See also best deli sandwiches in NYC.
Katz’s Delicatessen
The frank is $3.75 on the official menu, described as a natural-casing all-beef dog, and the knoblewurst — the garlic sausage — is $7.45 with rye. The local move that saves you twenty minutes: order at the front griddle rather than joining the pastrami carver line. Different queue, same building, a fraction of the wait. The honest caveats: you are handed a paper ticket at the door and you pay on the way out, and losing it is a genuine problem; and it is 24 hours on Saturday only — every other night it shuts by 11. From noon onward the room is a tourist scrum, which is the price of the place.
Papaya King
Get the address right, because the old one no longer exists. The original at 179 E 86th closed in April 2023 and the building was demolished for a condo tower; the brand reopened on 6 July 2024 at 206 E 86th Street, across the intersection at 86th and Third. Same red-and-yellow signage, same black-and-white celebrity photos, same standing-room counter, same 1932 idea of a griddled frank with a papaya drink. Open daily 9am to 11pm. The honest caveat: every other Papaya King is gone — St Marks in 2017, Downtown Brooklyn a year later, West 14th Street shows closed. And we could not verify a single current price, so we are not quoting one.
Crif Dogs
These are deep-fried, smoked and frequently bacon-wrapped — not boiled dirty-water dogs. Base dogs are $5.95, bacon-wrapped $6.95, and the Spicy Redneck at $9.95 (bacon-wrapped, chili, coleslaw, pickled jalapeños) is the one to order. Open to 2am, 3am on weekends. The honest caveat about price: their own marketing site undercounts by a dollar or two — check the live ordering menu before you budget. A loaded dog here is now $9–10, not the $5 it lives in people’s memories as. And the thing everyone should know: the phone booth at the back is the entrance to PDT.
crifdogs.com · See our East Village happy hours
Nathan’s Famous
On the corner of Surf and Stillwell since 1916, home of the July 4th contest, and still deep-frying the original all-beef frank. The Boardwalk outpost lists it at $5.99 and the chili dog at $6.99. The company was sold for $450 million in January 2026; the Coney Island restaurants carry on. The honest verdict: it is the most expensive of the classic institutions — $5.99 here buys you nearly two franks at Gray’s. You are paying for Coney Island, the boardwalk and 110 years, not for value. On a summer Saturday with the Cyclone running, that is a completely reasonable thing to pay for.
restaurants.nathansfamous.com · See our Coney Island happy hours
Ray’s Candy Store
Open 24 hours, seven days, on Avenue A since 1974, and Ray Alvarez is as much a neighbourhood institution as the shop. Hot dogs come off the same griddle as everything else. The honest verdict, and it is why this is in the institutions section rather than the value one: the dog is not really why Ray’s is famous. Go for the Belgian fries, the egg cream and the deep-fried Oreos, and take the dog as the add-on. Prices are not published anywhere online. It is a tiny storefront with a couple of stools and mostly a takeout window, and at 4am it is one of the best places in New York.
See our best late-night food in NYC
Cheap, and open when nothing else is
Including the 24-hour stand that people keep mistaking for Gray’s. More in best late-night food in NYC.
Chelsea Papaya
Now that Gray’s closes at 10pm, this is the one that actually stays open. Twenty-four hours, seven days, in the classic papaya-stand format: griddled franks, tropical drinks, fries, a standing counter and nothing else. A block from the F and M at 23rd Street, between 6th and 7th. The chili cheese dog is the house order. The honest caveat: there are no published prices anywhere and the website is dead, so we cannot quote you a number — expect papaya-stand money, which is to say single digits. This is the 3am answer the internet keeps wrongly giving as Gray’s.
See our Chelsea happy hours
Skippy’s Hot Dogs
A truck parked at 1952 Hylan Boulevard rather than a storefront, running Monday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm. Order the Wally Dog — sauerkraut, cheese sauce and chili on one frank — and note that the onions and the chili are both made in house, which almost nothing at this price does. It carries a 5.0 across sixty-odd reviews, 97% of them five stars, which is not a normal distribution. The honest caveat: lunch hours only, closed Sundays, and it is Staten Island, so you are making a trip. The $3.25 figure comes from a guide rather than from Skippy’s, so treat it as a strong indication rather than a quote.
See our best cheap eats in NYC
Chef-driven and loaded
Chicago drag, challah rolls and the $10 question. See also best burgers in NYC.
Bobbi’s Italian Beef
The pricing here is unusually clean: a plain Vienna dog is $6.76 and every dressed dog is $9.10 — Chicago, Chili, Chili Cheese, Carolina, Detroit Coney, a New York with roasted onions and kraut, and a Seattle with cream cheese and jalapeño. The vegan Chicago is $10.40. The honest verdict: nine dollars is a lot for a Chicago dog in Carroll Gardens, and the Italian beef is genuinely the reason to come — the dog is the sidecar. Go for the beef, add a dog, and you have had the correct meal. F or G to Bergen Street.
Dog Day Afternoon
A proper Chicago programme — Vienna beef, poppy seed bun, tomato, sport peppers, kosher pickle spear — at $9.50, and every dog comes with chips. Beyond the dogs there is Italian beef, Frito pie, a pizza puff and jambalaya. It carries a 4.8 across 150 reviews. The local move, and it is the important one: the Windsor Terrace shop shuts at 7pm, but the second location inside a Williamsburg bar runs to midnight on weeknights and 2am Friday and Saturday — that is the one you want after a night out. The honest caveat: those prices come off a delivery app and usually run above the counter price.
dogdaybrooklyn.com · See our Park Slope happy hours
Mile End Delicatessen
The Hoyt Dog is $10 and it is served on a challah roll, which is the entire point of it — all-beef frank, relish, kraut, and a bun that is genuinely better than a standard one. Smoked meat is the headline at a Montreal-style deli, so this is the sleeper order rather than the marquee. The honest verdict: ten dollars is deli money for a frank, and you should decide in advance whether the challah is worth four dollars more than Katz’s. Some nights it plainly is. A, C or G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn; the kitchen was closing at 8:30pm when we checked.
mileenddeli.com · See our best deli sandwiches in NYC
Glizzy’s
Inside Market 57, the food hall on Pier 57 in Hudson River Park, doing loaded specialty dogs that people are prepared to argue are the best in the city. Dogs run about $10. The honest verdict, and it is the same one as Mile End: ten dollars for a hot dog in a food hall that shuts at 8pm is a real number to weigh. The dog is very good; the arithmetic is not, and it is priced meaningfully above Crif Dogs for a comparable loaded dog. One practical note: there is no published street address for the stall itself — you are looking for Market 57 on the pier, then finding it inside.
See our best outdoor dining in NYC
Bars that serve a proper dog
Where the dog arrives as a plate. More in best bar food in NYC.
Old Town Bar
Open since 1892, with the original tile floor, tin ceiling and dumbwaiter still in place a block from Union Square. The chili dog is a griddled Sabrett with house chili, onions and cheddar, and it arrives as a plate with fries rather than as a counter snack — which is the distinction that puts it in this section. Beers mostly stay under $10. The honest caveat: nobody publishes a price for this dog anywhere we could reach, so budget for a bar plate rather than a $3 street frank. Go on a weekday afternoon when the room is empty and the light comes through the front windows.
oldtownbar.com · See our Union Square happy hours
PDT
You get in through the phone booth inside Crif Dogs, and the kitchen on the other side is Crif Dogs — same franks, treated by a serious cocktail bar. That means kimchi, lemongrass chili and coriander-scented sauerkraut rather than chili and cheese. The honest framing, which decides whether this is for you: this is a cocktail bar that serves hot dogs, not a hot dog place that serves cocktails, so expect cocktail-bar pricing on both. It is reservations only and the room is genuinely small — you cannot walk in through the booth on a whim. No prices are published online.
pdtnyc.com · See our best speakeasies in NYC
NYC hot dogs: FAQ
How much does a hot dog cost in NYC?
Between free and about $10. Rudy’s Bar and Grill gives you one free with any purchase. Gray’s Papaya franks are $3.25 and its Recession Special is $7.50 including tax for two franks and a drink. Katz’s is $3.75, Crif Dogs starts at $5.95, Nathan’s is $5.99, Frankel’s is $6, and loaded dogs at Bobbi’s, Dog Day Afternoon, Mile End and Glizzy’s run $9.10 to $10.
Is Gray’s Papaya still open 24 hours?
No, and this is the most common piece of outdated advice about it. Gray’s own site publishes hours of 8am to 10pm Sunday through Wednesday and 8am to 11pm Thursday through Saturday. Third-party listings still claiming 24/7 are stale. For a genuine all-night papaya stand, Chelsea Papaya at 171 West 23rd Street is open 24 hours, and Ray’s Candy Store on Avenue A is too.
Does Rudy’s still give you a free hot dog?
Yes. Rudy’s own homepage advertises cheap beer and free hot dogs with any purchase, with no minimum and no time window, and the house draft is $4. The dog is a plain boiled frank with mustard, ketchup or Tabasco – it is bar ballast rather than dinner, but a beer and a hot dog for four dollars is the best value in this guide.
Where is Papaya King now?
At 206 East 86th Street, since 6 July 2024. The original at 179 East 86th closed in April 2023 and the building was demolished for a condo tower, so do not send anyone there. Every other Papaya King location has closed – St Marks in 2017, Downtown Brooklyn shortly after, and the West 14th Street shop is listed as closed.
Which NYC hot dog places are open late?
Chelsea Papaya and Ray’s Candy Store are open 24 hours, seven days. Rudy’s runs to 4am every night. Crif Dogs goes to 2am on weeknights and 3am at weekends, and PDT behind it runs to 2am. Katz’s is 24 hours on Saturdays only. Gray’s Papaya, despite its reputation, closes at 10 or 11pm.
Last updated: August 2026. Prices and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
