I've been to Altoona on numerous occasions and had no clue just how close this place is to the mall. You know what? That may have been a good thing for me or I would not have explored Altoona more and would have made this a habitual thing for me.Driving up to here you think that you might be in for a lackluster experience. It looks ordinary from the outside and not too different on the inside. Looks like your run of the mill restaurant with a little bit of Texas flair in the decor. Speaking of the inside, when you walk in the main front door you get hit in the face with the aroma of onions. It's not the worst thing in the world, as onions gives you a heads up to ready yourself for a small feast.I have known of Texas Hot Dogs for some time, but never had a chance to visit until now. So when I walked in I knew I wanted a hot dog, but not quite sure exactly which kind. The young girl behind the counter kind of blurted out, "I can help who's next," and then continued to lean on the counter while looking down and only looking up to give me one of those exhausted looks like I have asked a question that I obviously was too stupid to know the answer. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. I had asked what exactly was on a Texas dog and after the exhausted eye roll was told that it is a brown mustard, chili and onions. I didn't need to think any more and told her to give me two of them. I wanted a side of fries and asked just how big is the small. After walking like a sloth the five feet she showed me a small fry bag and I told her to give me the large. Added a bottle of water to my order and it came to just shy of $7.Have my food on my tray and make my way to a table and start to dig in. Remember that onion smell I was talking about earlier? Well not only did it permeate the air, but also this hot dog. It is as if they cut up these onions and let them steep in water that came from onions. They were a little too overpowering for me. Even though I braved it through the first dog, I had to brush off as much of the onions from the second dog as I could. I thought that the mix of flavors would balance out, but the onions had other plans. Otherwise, and without the onions, they were fantastic. The mustard only really giving a hint to flavor and the chili was on point. Fries were fresh from the fryer and HOT. Nice and crispy, and screaming for some ketchup to be dipped in.I decided to dock this place a star for the lackluster and almost robotic customer service. Lackluster for reasons already listed and robotic because while I was eating it was like they were scripted to say the same thing over and over again when someone left the business. Kind of got annoying and something that was told to them to keep doing.
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