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Texas Big Dog Returns with a Taste of China
WARREN, Ohio -- The mayor and two city councilmen were on hand Tuesday morning to help the owner, a man in black, and his wife cut the ribbon that officially opened Texas Big Dog, a fast-food restaurant with a National Football League theme.
Owner Tom Ducharme’s cowboy hat, the frames of his dark sunglasses, sweater, trousers and rain slicker-style coat were entirely black. Only his cowboy boots made of Australian crocodile leather, sandalwood in color, were not.
Asked about the influence of country singer Johnny Cash on his attire, Ducharme quickly confirmed it and added that he likes Alan Jackson and George Strait as well.
After spending six years in China teaching business courses and English at a technical college, Ducharme, originally from northern Texas, returned to the United States. He met a friend from Cleveland who told him of the benefits of life in northeastern Ohio. He visited and fell in love with the Mahoning Valley, he said before returning to China. He and his wife, Lisa, whom he met and married in China, returned here last February when they bought a three-story Victorian house in Warren and looked to open a business.
The result is his fourth Texas Big Dog in a building constructed in the 1970s but vacant and boarded up three years. He is financing the building, which he refurbished at a cost of “thousands of dollars,” through a lease-purchase agreement.
Inside Texas Big Dog sit five trophies from 1991 to 1995 for best in Texas chili competitions. On the walls are the banners of several NFL teams including the Dallas Cowboys (between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns) and Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins.
Besides foot-long chili hot dogs, Texas Big Dog serves hamburgers and “China wraps” that contain pork or chicken.
The China wraps are new. Ducharme didn’t offer them in the three Texas Big Dogs he built in the Lone Star State and sold before going to China. While he sold the restaurants, Ducharme retained the rights to the name and kept the logo, Cowboy Tommy, seen on the large sign above the entrance to 3937 Youngstown Road.
The wraps have proved as popular as the hot dogs, Ducharme relates. “When you open, you see new faces,” he said. “When you start seeing the same faces come back, you know they think [the food] is good.”
The owner uses spices that he imports from China to flavor the sauces the kitchen help puts on the hot dogs and in the wraps. “My wife’s family sends them,” Ducharme said, when regular channels prove slow. He learned how to make the sauces he offers while he was in China.
“Ducharme he said, and they come in “sweet,” “mild” and “hot” Ducharme has “special hot dogs brought in” to fill the buns. The foot-longs are “all-meat” and the regular dogs are made mostly of pork and chicken. All have “a Southern flavor,” Ducharme says, that set them apart from other hot dogs served in the Valley.
Lisa Ducharme is no less remarkable than her husband. Besides being more fluent in English than he is in Chinese (by Tom’s admission), Lisa, from the city of Shenyang in Liaoning province, was a nurse supervisor in a hospital in Jilin province 20 years and is skilled in acupuncture.
While he was at Chang Chun University, provincial officials honored him as Most Outstanding Foreign Person for his many contributions to the community, Ducharme says.
Pictured: Jim Valesky, councilman-at-large; Jasmine Workman in Cowgirl Hot Dog uniform; Lisa Ducharme; owner Tom Ducharme; Mayor Doug Franklin; Eddie Colbert, 7th Ward councilman.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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