Coney Island (restaurant)

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A Coney Island is a type of restaurant popular in the northern United States, particularly in Michigan, as well as the name for the chili dog after which the restaurant was named.

Genealogy of the name

Coney Islands are a unique type of Greek American restaurant that originated at Todoroff's Original Coney Island in Jackson, Michigan in 1914. Two Coney Island restaurants later opened in 1917, including American Coney Island in downtown Detroit, established by Greek immigrant Gust Keros in 1917. Keros and his brother got into an argument quite soon after and split their restaurant into two parts--the present day Lafayette and American Coney Islands, which are next door to each other. Both restaurants are still owned by the descendents of the two Keros brothers.

Gust and Bill had a third, younger brother, Sotirios, who stayed in Greece. Sotirios's sons came to America, worked in Lafayette and American Coney Island, and eventually started a number of restaurants of their own, most notably Kerby's Koney Island, still owned by them today. They remain one of the few coney islands owned by their original families.

Typical menu

Two of the most popular items on the coney island menu are the Gyro and The Coney. Gyros or gyro (, not , Greek: γύρος "turn") is a Greek fast food. Sometimes the name is applied to the form of the sandwich (pita wrapped around filling) rather than to the filling itself, and sometimes the name...
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