LINKS:

The Huddle

LaFortune Student Center

To raise student awareness of the new late-night hours at the LaFortune Student Center's convenience store, aptly named The Little Store, La Bella began setting up a stand outside the entrance after midnight and offering hot dogs for 25 cents.

"The idea was basically to have something so ridiculously low-priced that it would draw [people] into the store," he says.

La Bella planned for the promotion to last only two weeks, but it proved so popular that it's still going. The bargain-basement, roller-grilled treats have not only become a late-night staple of student diets, but the term "Quarter Dogs" has entered the campus lexicon.

"I heard about [Quarter Dogs] early freshman year, and I had to go see what they were all about," says senior Courtney Kirtley. "Three years later, I still love them."

The larger, relocated, renamed LaFortune convenience store -- now in the east side of the building and called the Huddle Mart -- sells between 200 and 300 Quarter Dogs each night, La Bella says. The total jumps to 500 during finals and midterms. They're still available only after midnight.

La Bella acknowledges that the store loses money on every Quarter Dog it sells but says there's value in giving students another on-campus eating option when other venues are closed.

Quarter Dogs not only offer a quick, inexpensive way to ward off hunger pangs, they sometimes provide entertainment. Students have been known to organize contests to see who can eat the most. La Bella recalls one contest he witnessed where the winner downed 14.

His reward: $3.50 -- exactly the cost of 14 Quarter Dogs.

-- Kristy Katzmann, class of  2000

Return to winter 1999-2000 contents
Notre Dame magazine home page