This is part one of my interview with Biker Jim, chef-owner of Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs. Part two of our banter will run in this space tomorrow.
Jim Pittenger Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs 2148 Larimer Street 303-550-8231 www.bikerjimsdogs.com
"I'm too young to have this much history," quips the 54-year-old Army brat who was born in California and bumped around Morocco and Spain, Omaha and Albuquerque, Alaska and Boulder before eventually settling in Denver, where he's become a national phenomenon, all thanks to a hot dog cart that grew into a sausage-slinging empire with multiple carts, a tricked-out food truck, a brick-and-mortar and another storefront in the pipeline.
Not bad for a former repo man who spent his youth as a self-described "asshole drug addict" and eighteen years in Boulder repossessing pickup trucks and Pintos before launching his booming wiener business on the 16th Street Mall.