OAKLAND — Newer residents of this city may hardly notice the boarded-up, oddly shaped building covered by murals on a triangular lot in the Temescal neighborhood.
It was once home to Original Kasper’s Hot Dogs, a landmark that helped grow a pair of separate East Bay restaurant chains bearing similar names and a shared lineage. The original has been closed for over 20 years, and efforts to revive it always seem to fall short.
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But soon, the tiny space with a large history will once again sling hot dogs, its new tenant a prolific entrepreneur who wants to expand Winky Dinky Dogs, a restaurant he opened a couple years ago on 19th Street, in Oakland’s Uptown area.
The new North Oakland location, launched by owner Tyranny Allen, is set to open in July and will feature a nod to the rich history of Original Kasper’s, though Winky Dinky’s menu also includes burgers, chicken sandwiches, a plate of gumbo and daily specials, in addition to its signature hot dogs.
“We’re going to have a poster board with the whole history of Kasper’s,” Allen said earlier this week in front of the Winky Dinky, where he can be spotted most afternoons minding a grill on the sidewalk. “The owner’s the one who popped off this whole hot dog craze.”
Glancing away from the meats, he warmly greeted a couple city workers who had arrived to grab their lunch orders at Winky Dinky and had fond childhood memories to share of the East Bay’s hot dog scene.
Winky Dinky Dogs owner Tyranny Allen cooks game hens on a barbecue smoker outside his restaurant along 19th Street on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. Allen plans to open a second location of Winky Dinky Dogs along Telegraph Avenue in the former Original Kasper’s Hot Dogs building. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
“Went there all the time,” Tommy Austin, a parks employee at Lake Merritt, said of the Original Kasper’s restaurant, while a co-worker, Ken McElroy, recalled Caspers as a standout fast-food favorite from his days growing up in Pleasant Hill.
Wait … Kasper’s or Caspers?
Anyone living here long enough — or paying close attention — will remind you there are nearly identical hot dog joints around the region that carry both names.
Their explanations detail a supposed rift between cousins that led to the divergence, plus a slight variance in recipes — one using all beef, the other incorporating some pork. The timeline and total accuracy of both these accounts are in dispute.
“It’s a very confusing story,” said Harry Yaglijian, whose father, of the same name, owned and ran Original Kasper’s for a half-century. “Everyone has their own version.”
There’s no disagreement, though, that Original Kasper’s Hot Dogs started it all in the city’s Temescal neighborhood, at a triangular street island where Telegraph and Shattuck avenues — a pair of busy thoroughfares traveling the same direction — happen to meet.
As history tells it, Kasper Koojoolian moved to Oakland from Chicago and opened a hot dog spot in 1929 that carried the authenticity of Midwest sausages, but in better weather.
His daughter married the older Harry Yaglijian, a fellow Armenian who had escaped genocide in Turkey, and who eventually gave up work as a gem cutter in Los Angeles to take over the hot dog business in 1947, following Koojoolian’s death a few years prior.
On that tiny Temescal island, Yaglijian became an East Bay legend — stories abound of old Harry conversing in six languages, chopping tomatoes and onions late into the night with buns steamed, and not grilled, to perfection.
File photo of Harry Yaglijian showing off one of his popular hot dogs in 1979 at the original KasperÕs Hot Dogs in Oakland. (Oakland Tribune archives)
Among his regular customers were the Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton, actor Danny Glover and Congressman, and future Oakland mayor, Ron Dellums. John F. Kennedy once stopped by.
Original Kasper’s had catered to a mostly Italian neighborhood, but it stuck around even as the 1960s construction of the Grover-Shafter Freeway tore through the area and sent businesses fleeing.
And it survived the explosion of national fast-food chains like McDonald’s and Jack in the Box, which continue to surrounded the boarded-up Shattuck Avenue building to this day.
Yaglijian’s son, or “Little Harry,” ran out of steam trying to keep Original Kasper’s open after his father’s death, eventually closing shop in 2003.
By that point, cousins of Koojoolian had founded successful Kasper’s and Caspers chains of their own — rivalries that the younger Yaglijian notes didn’t make for smooth familial relations at the time, though he said the descendants all get along and often see each other at church.
The two surviving versions of the business now use the same sausage distributor, a company that itself was launched by members of the Koojoolian family tree.
File photo from 1999 of Harry Yaglijian at theÊKasper’s Hot Dogs he took over from his father. (Nick Lammers/Oakland Tribune Archives)
“It’s a good business, if someone’s willing to put the work into it,” said Yaglijian, who is 78 and still lives in Oakland. “There’s nothing like a good hot dog.”
Winky Dinky Dogs will now step into the property, the newest arrival to a Temescal neighborhood widely seen as having been gentrified in the past two decades.
But some historic mainstays remain, such as the Kingfish Pub and Cafe, whose owners unsuccessfully tried to buy the Original Kasper’s site a few years ago. For a time, the younger Yaglijian served hot dogs to patrons inside the bar. His family’s building was ultimately purchased by a real-estate investor who will lease to Allen, the Winky Dinky owner.
Orders of fried ribs are sauced and plated at Winky Dinky Dogs restaurant along 19th Street on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. Owner Tyranny Allen plans to open a second location of Winky Dinky Dogs along Telegraph Avenue in the former Original Kasper’s Hot Dogs building.
Allen, a 54-year-old native of San Francisco, is building his own legacy in Oakland that goes far beyond hot dogs.
He went by his first name, Tyranny, as a rapper in the Digital Underground, the famed hip-hop collective with a long history in Oakland and an ever-shifting roster of artists, including the late Tupac Shakur.
Since the 1990s, Allen has launched a staggering number of businesses: a skating brand named Kickflip, Lucky’s Barber Shop in Old Oakland, the Torch rooftop bar downtown, an art gallery bearing his name at Laney College and a promotions firm, Marketing Kings, which has represented Marshawn Lynch and other celebrities.
It was while studying marketing at Long Beach State that Allen watched the Black satire film Hollywood Shuffle, where a character works at a restaurant named Winky Dinky Dog — a name that stuck with him for reasons beyond its catchiness.
“Back in them days, you only seen us as criminals,” explained Allen, who has resided in Oakland since the late 1980s. “So Winky Dinky Dog was a funny scene in a movie about how Black people could work other jobs.”
His ambitions for Winky Dinky are vast, but Allen is well aware of the significance of the building his new hot dog joint will inhabit.
“Old Harry would feed the people,” he said, referring to a documented history of Original Kasper’s offering free hot dogs to kids who couldn’t afford them. “I’m the new guy here to carry it forward.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].
Winky Dinky Dogs owner Tyranny Allen in his restaurant along 19th Street on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Oakland, Calif. Allen plans to open a second location of Winky Dinky Dogs along Telegraph Avenue in the former Original Kasper’s Hot Dogs building. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)