Memphis Taproom Beer Garden

Stopped by Memphis Taproom's new beer garden this past weekend, which serves up hot dogs from a permanently placed, non-mobile food truck. I do love me a good hot dog, but veggie hot dogs are sort of hard to come by at carts or restaurants. The ever veggie-friendly Memphis Taproom has not forgotten about me and you, though. Beef, vegetarian, and vegan dogs can be had!The narrow, outdoor dining space with large picnic tables has a picnicky beer garden feel, perfect for the warmer months we have coming our way. Stenciled in red paint on the tables are friendly reminders to mind your manners, keep it down, and generally don't do any thing that would piss off those living in the surrounding residential neighborhood.Back in the corner is a red and blue truck from whence the hot dog creations and cans of beer flow. And, sorry, colorblind males, the truck is blue — as in turquoise blue — not green. I will give you sea foam green, if you insist on green.
It's best to know before you go that Memphis Taproom's beer garden only serves hot dogs, fried pickles, cans of beer, water, and soda. Food, beer, wine and cocktails from inside Memphis Taproom proper cannot, and will not travel out to the beer garden. If you want to dine in the beer garden, you will be enjoying hot dogs and beer only. If, like me, you do not drink beer, but still like to imbibe, I suggest you plan ahead, but NOT bring your own booze and get Memphis Taproom in trouble! If you don't eat meat, you're going to have to customize most of the hot dogs on the menu. First, specify if you want a vegetarian hot dog (Worthington), or a vegan hot dog (Lightlife Tofu Pups). Obviously, bacon-wrapped dogs need to be made without bacon, but also watch out for the meat-based chili. And, while the buns are vegan, the beer batter that some of the hot dogs are fried in is not — the batter contains buttermilk.

Even with the little customizations to accommodate a vegetarian or vegan diet, you're still left with some of the most creative veggie hot dogs in Philly.The California Uber Alles hot dog with two (!!) beer battered hot dogs, cucumber, avocado, nori, wasabi mustard, pickled ginger, and soy sounded so good, but the wasabi mustard was so overpowering (nasal passages were wasabi-afied real good!), that all the other ingredients were lost. I'm also not fond of the non-crispy fried beer batter on the hot dogs; it just didn't seem to add anything.We highly enjoyed the beer batter on the fried dill pickle wedges, though.
Much better to my liking was the Sun Devil sans bacon. The pinto beans, garlic mayo, jalapeno sauce, pico de gallo, mustard, and long hots all worked together well. Again, two hot dogs to the bun.Really, though, I wish there were only one hot dog to the bun. And I wish the bun was a real hot dog bun instead of a chewy, hefty hoagie roll. There's just too much bread with a hoagie roll, even with two hot dogs inside, not to mention the bread texture is wrong. With my hot dog, I took a bite, then pulled off a bit of bread, took a bite, and pulled off a bit of bread, and so on.

All in all, though, this is fan-freakin'-tastic news if you are a vegetarian or vegan hot dog lover! I can't wait to go back and try Memphis Taproom's other hot dog creations out in their beer garden. Hopefully, they'll occasionally change up the menu, 'cause I'd really love a baked bean, raw onion, and slaw dog. (Hint, hint.)

Memphis Taproom Beer Garden
2331 East Cumberland St., Philadelphia, PA 19125
215-425-4460
April-October
Mon-Thurs, 4-10 pm
Fri, 4 pm-midnight
Sat, noon-midnight
Sun, noon-10 pm