This story originally aired in the March 9, 2025 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Donald White used to be a Skeenies Hot Dogs regular, swinging by in his wrecker on his way to rescue a stranded motorist.
“Everybody would get in my wrecker and they’d say, ‘You ate at Skeenies didn’t you?’” he says. “Because it’s got the smell that nobody else (does). The onions, they stay in your car.”
Then, in March 2018, owner Andy Skeen died of a short illness at just 59 years old. He had no children, leaving his sister Karen as the only one left who knew the family recipe for Skeenies’ legendary chili and slaw.
About a month before her brother passed, Karen asked him about carrying on that legacy.
“He said, ‘No, let it go ahead and die with me,’” Karen says.
Long ago, Andy and Karen’s father — Andy Sr., the restaurant’s founder — sought to make Skeenies a nationwide brand. He eventually had the restaurant franchised in 13 states but found that the bigger the company got, the harder it was to control the quality of the product. So, he yanked the franchise licenses and vowed that only his direct descendants would ever operate Skeenies.
Karen’s brother took over the place when he got older. But at her family’s encouragement, she made a life outside the food business, becoming a successful court reporter.
And even though she would now be the last to carry on that legacy, her brother was adamant that running the restaurant would be too much for her.
“He said, ‘I don’t want you working in here like we did seven days a week, all these hours, worrying all the time with it,’” Karen says.
Photo Creidt: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Seeing the restaurant close was hard on fans like Donald White. He would fantasize about pulling in and grabbing a couple of those onion-heavy hotdogs.
“I live right out the road there. I told the old lady all the time, ‘I’m going to stop and get a Skeenies hot dog,’” he says.
It was hard on Karen, too.
“It’s a part of me. It’s an integral part of me,” she says. “And I just felt sad to let it go.”
So she decided she just wouldn’t let it go.
Karen lives in Florida but still comes back to West Virginia each Thanksgiving to see her extended family. So, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving 2022, she made 40 gallons of chili. She chopped 100 pounds of cabbage to make slaw and ordered 2,000 wieners and buns.
On that Black Friday, Karen flicked on the neon “OPEN” sign. The line of customers didn’t end for 10 straight hours.
“We didn’t expect the crowds. We were out of everything the first day,” Karen says. “We were sitting there — what are we going to do? We have to get more hotdogs. We have to get more buns. We have to make more chili.”
She still had one more day of the sale to go. That night, she dispatched her cousins to buy ingredients from local grocery stores. Knowing she couldn’t sling hotdogs for another 10 hours all by herself, Karen also called in reinforcements.
Linda Troup worked for the restaurant for several years in the 2000s, and Karen knew she was one of the best employees they had.
“She messaged me and said, ‘Linda, can you come help?’” Troup says.
The next day, she was right there in the trenches with Karen. Since then, Troup has returned each Thanksgiving weekend to help Karen run the annual Skeenies Tribute Sale.
“This is the best two days for me. It really is,” she says. “I enjoy it. I mean my back is hurting but it’s worth it.”
Karen has recruited a few more helpers through the years, but it remains a skeleton crew. Despite that, they made 3,500 hot dogs during 2024’s two-day sale.
The flood of customers and small staff leads to long days and long lines. But nobody in the kitchen seems to mind.
“We’re all dead,” Karen told West Virginia Public Broadcasting while making hot dogs. “I asked my team about an hour ago, ‘Do you guys think I should do it again next year?’”
The answer was a resounding “yes.”
Photo Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
They do it for the same reason Karen’s dad was such a stickler for quality. They want to make the customers happy. And despite the long wait, the customers are.
“They wait an hour and a half in the cold, in the snow, and they thank us,” Karen says.
Michael Hutchinson is used to waiting in front of Skeenies. This is where he used to catch the school bus.
“I was into drawing and I drew a race car. She had it taped right here for a lot of years. I put Skeenies on the quarter panel of it,” he says. “So I got free hot dogs every now and again when nobody was around.”
In 2024, Hutchinson brought his 15-year-old daughter Antoinette to have her own Skeenies dog.
“People think it’s a hot dog, it’s more than just a hot dog. You don’t see a line like this at Dairy Queen. It’s childhood coming back,” he says.
Photo Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
That’s true for Karen, too.
“When I would come home to visit them, I would come to this restaurant before I went in the house. Because that’s where I would always find them,” she says. “And so when I have these sales, I feel like it’s where I still find them.”
With the sale over, Skeenies sits darkened for another year. There’s nowhere to buy the “indescribably different” slaw dogs advertised on the billboard above the little restaurant.
Karen hopes to bring the restaurant back to life in November. Until then, memories will have to suffice.
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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.