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DOG DAY AFTERNOON

A A A Comments By Lori Midson Thursday, Jul 22 2010

Steve Ballas, the top dog of his namesake frankfurter joint, is renowned for holding food challenges, the kind that involve stuffing your face with pizza, sugarcoating your belly with cupcakes and downing as many wieners as possible before you pop. It’s the latter battle that’s on today’s agenda at 1 p.m., when eight qualifying contenders, all of whom have paid $25 and previously shoved five dogs down their throats, bun included, in less than three minutes, vie for the top prize in the Chow Down for Charity event to benefit Project Angel Heart, a local nonprofit that supplies meals to people with potentially life-threatening illnesses.

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Today’s throwdown, which comes at the end of National Hot Dog Month, requires the eight qualifiers to toss back as many tubers as they can in eight minutes. “The competitors can dress the dogs, but they can’t dunk them in water, and they’ve got to eat both the dog and the bun,” says Ballas, who politely asks that you don’t upchuck. “Expelling your hot dog will get you disqualified,” he warns. The top three winners will receive red, white and blue trophies and cash prizes in the amounts of $150, $75 and $25.

Even if you don’t want to watch a bunch of brutes pounding hot dogs, stop by Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs, at 3525 East Colfax Avenue, for one of your own, since Ballas is donating 25 percent of the day’s total proceeds to Project Angel Heart. For more info, call 303-333-7627.
Sun., July 25, 1 p.m., 2010

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