Olson (Images: CHS)

Affordable housing is all well and good but what about affordable drunk food? We have two important pieces of breaking late-night noshing news to start the week.

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  (Images: CHS)

  RIP Po Dogs: A wiener empire that at one time stretched from E Union to Ballard to the University District has come to an end. Po Dogs announced over the weekend that it will close its original and last-standing brick-and-mortar location later this month:
  How amazing of a wiener life we’ve had since opening our doors 6 years ago. Developing some amazing friendships and a great regular customer base has made our everyday work life so amazingly enjoyable and we can’t thank you enough for sharing your lunches, dinners, and late night drunken/sober/happy/sad/celebratory hungry stomachs with us. It is with heartfelt love and gratitude for all of you that we are announcing our retirement as Seattle’s favorite brick and mortar wiener shop. We will be serving our last famous Po Dog wiener on Wednesday, July 15th and would love to see you all for a final farewell between now and then! We will be focusing on the catering side of our business and making room in our brick and mortar space for an amazing new concept! Seattle, we can’t THANK YOU enough for your support over the past 6 years. To all the mouths that our wieners have made so happy, maybe one of these days we will pop up for a surprise wienering in your office or at your wedding!
  Founder Laura Olson opened Po Dogs on E Union in fall 2009. By that winter, Olson was already gearing up for expansion in a flurry of activity that included the opening of Manhattan Drugs on 12th Ave. Almost as quickly, pieces of the new ventures began to be taken over or closed. The 2013 business implosion around E Olive Way nightclub The Social was also part of the boom and bust. Other components of the Olson empire including 11th Ave’s Grim’s have since been jettisoned. We don’t know yet what’s next for the Union location of Po Dogs — stay tuned.

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  Dimas (Image: CHS)

  Viva Neon Torta: With Montana’s neighboring walk-up counter graduating Kedai Makan to the old La Bete space around the corner, there is now space on E Olive Way for Rachel Marshall’s frequent food collaborator Monica Dimas to do her thing on the street. Neon Sandwich (final name TBD!) is coming later this year:
  Though Dimas is restoring Mexican street food to the one-time home of Tacos Gringos, her second location won’t sell tacos. She’s planning a menu of tortas, Mexico’s oblong sandwiches served on hearty, crusty buns called bolillos. Thus far she’s been too busy plotting her menu to finalize a name, but one possible moniker is Neon Sandwich. Dimas says her tortas won’t necessarily be bound to Mexican tradition. Some of the specials she’s run at Neon Taco will migrate over here, like a lamb torta with smoked poblanos, a pork belly and kimchi number, and one stuffed with smoked fish. The menu will be a concise list of about a half-dozen sandwiches, horchata with cold brew, and some agua frescas.
  Are you sure you wouldn’t rather call it Neon Torta, Monica? CHS talked with Dimas about Broadway’s Neon Taco earlier this year.

  

  (Image: Brandon Patoc)