Meet Your Merchant: Carson couple doggedly seeking a finer frankfurter

To Mike Gribble, hot dogs are more than just meat smothered in ketchup and mustard.

Instead, he sees them as opportunities to try out new combinations of toppings on various styles of sausage such as pineapples, teriyaki sauce, tomato and sweet mustard on a Polish dog or mayo, ketchup, Tapatio sauce, tomato and jalapenos on a hot dog.

"So why not hot dogs?" said Gribble, who with his wife, Jan, co-owns K9 Dog House, located in a strip mall near Carson City's Walmart on College Parkway. "I can do the same thing with a hot dog than anybody can with a burger, if not better."

Mike Gribble, 50, said he always enjoyed cooking, and after a long career in the car business, doing everything from fixing to selling them, it was time for a change.

So the husband-and-wife team - married seven years - decided to open K9 Dog House in August 2009.

"I like to cook," said Mike Gribble, who used to run Finx Hot Dogs in a gas station on North Carson Street. "My neighbor sort of started the whole idea. I worked with him for a little while and we parted ways and it took about three months to find this place."

Jan Gribble, 55, said her husband spends his days thinking up new menu items.

"He pretty much makes them up in his head," Gribble said.

The Gribbles allow their customers to scribble messages in marker on the restaurant's white walls. Some have traced their child's hand while others mark their passing through Carson City, like one man who works as an ice-road trucker in Alaska.

There's also a wall of fame and shame for their "Death of Frankenstein" challenge, which features a one-pound hot dog in three pounds of toppings. The catch? Finishing the thing in 30 minutes or less.

The Gribbles also host Cruise Nights on Fridays, inviting members of the community to park their cars near the restaurant to enjoy the evening. The event starts at 5 p.m. and usually ends at 8 p.m.

And after months of preparing K9s, Mike Gribble said business isn't growing by leaps and bounds, but it's growing.

"We're starting to get new faces," he said. "Some come, some go. It varies constantly in the restaurant business. One day you could be surfing a 40-foot wave and the next day you're kissing sand."

They have a couple people working on Saturdays, but most of the time they're the ones behind the counter spending 10 to 13 hours a day at the restaurant.

"The restaurant business is not 8 to 5," Gribble said. "You're here early in the morning and you're going home late at night and you're tired."

As for the combinations of hot dogs that line a large chalk board inside the restaurant, Gribble said he doesn't have a favorite. Instead, he enjoys coming up with new menu items, even from customers who recommend new combinations.

"You could say we do have an R&D department," he said. "It's our customers."