Emboldening the Queer Community: Lexington’s Gay Hot Dog Stand
Marcus Randolph and Brad Love bought Sam’s Hot Dog Stand in downtown Lexington three years ago. Sam’s has been in operation for 30 years, and the business has never shied away from queer allyship. The hot dog stand has a history of opening later at night to make food for the clientele next door at Molly Brook’s, a mixed-crowd bar, and Crossings, Lexington’s offbeat LGBTQ+ cocktail bar that’s existed since the 1980s. It would also serve customers during the Lexington Pride Festival when the festival was still in the courthouse plaza across the street.
“We want to create a culture in our lives and in the lives around us of safety and fun and ‘you always have somewhere to go.’ We do a lot of hanging out with friends: our house is the hub, it’s an open door. I don’t lock it till it’s late. ‘Come on in, I’ll feed you.’ That might be the Appalachian hill witch inside me, and Sam’s is an extension of that,” says Brad Love, co-owner of Sam’s Hot Dog Stand.
Randolph and Love both share a desire to create an emboldening culture for their businesses (Love also works for Wolf & Ryan Hair Salon), their queer community, and their neighbors and Lexington at large.
For Randolph, buying Sam’s was an opportunity that came at the right time. After working in the restaurant industry for over a decade, Randolph decided to leave and never look back. After doing a few other things, he found himself in an in-between period. When Sam’s Hot Dog Stand became available, he decided to take a chance.
“I consider myself the current steward of a legacy business. Sam’s Hot Dog Stand Lexington was there before me and will be there after me,” says Randolph.
From the very beginning, Randolph and Love have sought out the right people to staff Sam’s and have made taking care of their team a top priority.
“I set out with goals of equity and democracy which in the restaurant industry is somewhat rare. I can’t do what I do without the people I work with,” Randolph says.
Love characterizes their work at Sam’s consistent with their work at Wolf & Ryan. Started by a husband and wife couple from Eastern Kentucky, Wolf & Ryan pulled Love into a conversation about wanting to be a safe space for everybody, especially the queer community. Love’s task was to get more queer people into Wolf & Ryan and give the community a high-end hair experience without having to worry about other customers gawking.
“We want that down home ‘you’re just in your living room getting your haircut’ but it’s super posh, too,” Love explains.
The owners of Wolf & Ryan were already good allies, but they wanted to take their allyship further and they allowed Love to run in that role. Randolph and Love talk a lot about this with Sam’s Hot Dog Stand as well. They’re creating a queer-inclusive culture.
Randolph and Love are community leaders, creating spaces and organizing events to bolster Lexington in general, but their primary focus is the queer community. They offer space for local, queer artists to exhibit and sell their work. In the drag shows they organize, a percentage of the money raised goes to local charities. Sam’s also partners with Crossings, fundraising for organizations like Camp Beacon, Arbor Youth, AVOL, and the Lexington Pride Center. Whether through drag shows at the salon or by promoting the arts “no matter how they hit,” both businesses embolden queer people and show their clientele a side of Lexington they may not be familiar with.
“I feel like Sam’s was a queer business before us,” says Love. “It is legendary. When we took it over, we said, we will not do this if we can’t impact the community that raised us. We met, and we became even more embraced by the community and more out socially. We met through karaoke.”
Randolph and Love will have been married 8 years in October.
As for Lexington’s response to Sam’s becoming, if possible, even gayer: while some customers have complained about Sam’s gay decor, Randolph and Love are committed.
“We don’t care. We don’t want their money. We don’t want their business. We’re gonna do what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna stay true to our ethos and ourselves. And, so far, it’s been a success. So far, the public has responded well, almost entirely.”
Early on, working with the previous owner, Randolph found in Sam’s basement a handmade wooden sign painted in rainbow colors with the outline of Kentucky and the word PRIDE cut into the surface. A friend of the previous owner had made it years before. Randolph’s response was “Why is it in the basement?! I put that thing right in the window by the front door and it hasn’t moved since.”
With the downtown location there is a dichotomy.
“There’s two different worlds we have here at Sam’s,” says Randolph. “There’s the daytime crowd, the lawyers, the politicians, city hall and the courthouses, office workers, and a huge population of young people and college students. Also there’s the nighttime crowd, there’s a dozen bars in a five-minute walk and many other queer-owned businesses just a stones-throw from where we are. And we can embrace both. While not having to hide ourselves to embrace them.”