HILLSBOROUGH: Retired teacher turned “dawgfather” starts hot dog business, gives back

By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
After 43 years of coaching youth football and 15 years of teaching at Hillsborough Middle School, Peter Passe admits he had a different idea of what retired life would look like., “I thought I’d be laying on an island somewhere with somebody feeding me grapes under a palm tree,” he said, laughing., Yet at 66 years old, the lifelong Hillsborough resident who dedicated most of his adult life to the community has taken on a completely new venture – selling New York-style hot dogs at events around town., From 9 a.m. to noon this Saturday at the Hillsborough Municipal Recreational Fields, Passe will officially be open for business at his stainless steel pushcart adorned with the name of his fledgling business, Dawgfather Hot Dogs., Passe said the idea of running a hot dog cart came to him as was recouperating from knee surgery and looking forward to retirement back in January., “I didn’t want the rigors of a full-time job, but I didn’t want to sit around and do nothing either,” he said., Passe said he always knew he would want to keep himself busy once his career wound down, since that was what his father and grandfather did before him., “As a kid, I remember my grandfather not sitting in a rocking chair waiting to die, but doing sit-ups in bed when waking up and he had a favorite tree limb that he would do chin-ups right until the day he died at 96 years old,” Passe said. “My dad was the same way – he kept busy doing things, so I knew I wasn’t going to just stop.”, One reason he wanted to start a concession business stemmed largely from the fact that his time as a coach made him realize that many of the township’s recreational venues have nowhere to purchase food or refreshments., Once he knew he was going to be ready for the warmer weather this year, Passe said he reached out to the township’s recreation department to work out how he could begin selling his wares during local sporting events., “Whether there’s a tournament on the weekend or something like that, I want to serve the fans and the kids when there are no other refreshments,” he said., In order to ensure that he was happy with the hot dogs he was selling, Passe said he tried multiple vendors, but ultimately opted to adopt a new brand from New York called Snap Dogs. This weekend, he will become the first business in New Jersey to peddle the new, 100 percent beef franks., “I just thought that I didn’t want to do a New York-style hot dog cart using really cheap products that a lot of street vendors do,” he said. “People in New York might put up a Sabrett umbrella … but they were buying cheap hot dogs that were filled with chicken parts.”, In an effort to give back to the community, Passe said he will donate a portion of the proceeds made from each Snap Dog sold to the “Salute to Veterans Breakfast” slated to take place prior to the township’s Memorial Day parade on May 27. Officials from Snap Dog, Inc. said they will match his contribution., Though his business is just now taking off, Passe said he could not see himself expanding to a brick and mortar location, though his expansion plans involve helping local teens find summer jobs., “I remember how hard it was for my kids to find jobs during high school, so if I ever did expand, I would probably offer local high school kids a job during the summer,” he said. “Knowing what I had to go through with all of the approvals, this isn’t something that a high school kid could do on their own, but I certainly could set them up.”