(soft music) - [Bill] Coney, Coney, Coney, Coney, Coney.

Truly Detroit, right?

Let's serve up things Detroiters might not know about the Coney Island hotdog, updating a story from Detroit PBS almost 10 years ago.

- [Narrator 3] I know you know about those two Coneys right there at Michigan and Lafayette, the Lafayette and the American, iconic Motor City cuisine.

- Iconic and I don't use that word very often 'cause some people overuse it, but it really is.

- [Narrator 3] Grace Keros is the third generation owner of American Coney Island.

Grace's grandfather, Gust, actually started it all down on Michigan Avenue back in 1917.

- [Bill] Gust, Greek immigrant came through Ellis Island, stopped in Coney Island, New York, ate a hotdog there, sold them here, giving us the Detroit style Coney.

But in Michigan, Detroit style isn't the only one.

- I lived in Detroit for eight years, but Flint Coney is the best.

- See how delicious that is?

- I like 'em, but they don't like me.

(Magda laughs) - [Bill] The Flint style Coney, at Starlite Coney Island since 1966 in Burton, just east of Flint, and Gillie's on the northern edge of the city since 1985.

- [Interviewer] How's everything taste so far guys, okay?

- Awesome.

- Eaters here say Flint Coney sauce is meatier and Detroit sauce is soupy.

- The chili sauce is better down there.

- Yeah.

- This is a lot drier.

It's got a lot better flavor.

- People from the Detroit market really don't understand our Coneys.

I think obviously ours are a lot better.

Flint Coneys are Flint Coneys and people from this area know and understand Flint Coneys.

- Dave Liske wrote the book, "The Flint Coney: A Savory History."

- The Coney became as big as it was because of the auto workers.

So the two work hand in hand.

- Flint, the vehicle, city, General Motors factory town, assembly lines, making cars and Coneys.

- It's kind of an assembly line, it really is.

There was times, you know, back in the day we would serve three, 4,000 people a day, and it was one guy stay in the station, does his job, another guy in the station, and it would just get shoved down the line and it has to be timed perfectly too.

So you need hot food to go out hot.

- In this area, when I was young there was lots of Coney Islands.

- Flint Coneys, some running 24 hours right next to the car plants, like the factories, the Coneys have dwindled, although a few still going strong.

- Everybody knows what a Coney island is.

So it describes the type of business you are, but you don't pay a franchise fee.

- [Bill] David Gillie got his start working at Starlight.

He ran a Coney in nearby Clio in the 1970s before building a new place in Mount Morris.

- Everybody says, why don't you just use your name.

It's Gillie, but Gilley's in Texas was big back then.

And he goes, yeah, that's cool.

- [Cowboy] Welcome to Gilley's.

The world's largest nightclub.

- You a real cowboy?

- The eighties.

The era of the urban cowboy.

- Well, it depends on what you think a real cowboy is.

- [Bill] No mechanical bull at this Gillie's, no beer or barbecue, but plenty of Coneys.

- This guy come to me with, you know, I've been tearing down ponderosas and I have a whole bunch of country western multi decor you might like.

Oh yeah, that sounds cool.

- Gillie, he recently retired, but he likes to visit.

His restaurant lives on because he sold it to his employees.

The origins of the Flint Coney starts not in Greece, it's Macedonia, immigrants from the same part of Europe.

- The Balkan Wars of 1908 to 1913, decimated the area.

Greeks and Macedonians were leaving in droves, just going wherever they could.

- The original Coney Island started, it was my husband's uncle, George Brenov.

- [Bill] George Brenov and another Macedonians, including one named Simion Brayan came to the US and headed west.

Before he reached Flint, he had a hot dog in Rochester, New York.

- And then he had another one in the Buffalo area and didn't really like it, said it was tasteless, thought he could do better and based it on a Macedonian stew.

- [Bill] According to Dave Liske, the Flint style Coney appeared in the early 1920s and it seems Macedonians here knew little about the Greeks and their Coney Islands down in Detroit.

- [Interviewer] You got a lot of sauce on yours, huh?

- Absolutely.

- The way you like it, huh?

- Absolutely.

- Did you order extra sauce?

- Yes, we always do when we come here.

- The topping is brown beef heart that's spiced with cumin and paprika and chili powder, and some minced onion in there as well.

And then just topped with yellow mustard and chopped onions.

- [Bill] He said beef heart, ground beef heart.

- It's ground smaller than a hamburger, but it's still firm because it's that heart muscle and if you took hamburger and grounded it that small, it'd turn to mush.

And it sounds bad to say beef heart, but people don't realize beef heart is your only organ in your body that is a muscle, and it's a really lean, solid muscle meat.

- [Bill] That beef heart, common in Detroit style Coney sauce too.

Maybe you knew that.

Detroit style, Flint style, a preference, probably just what you're used to.

Then there's Lansing, a bipartisan approach to these contrasting Coney cultures.

- We offer both the Detroit version Coney and the Flint version.

- Dominic Migaldi runs Sparty's Coney Island.

- You know, being the halfway point, we get people coming from Flint, coming from Detroit, you know, it's really about 50/50 between the two, honestly.

- We got our world's famous Detroit Coney Island sauce and our famous Flint meaty sauce.

And even for the customers, they want 'em mixed together, we call it a Saginaw so.

- Saginaw?

Lest we forget Jackson, Michigan and the Jackson style Coney.

Down by the train station, there's Jackson Coney Island and Virginia Coney Island.

- Come here often?

- Oh yeah?

Like every day.

- Every day?

- Every day.

- [Bill] Jackson, birthplace of the Republican party and some might say the birthplace of the Michigan Coney, a few years before the Coney Island appeared in Detroit.

- 1914 is the year that we officially considered the Virginia Coney Island to come into existence.

- [Narrator 1] b Joe Matthews owns Virginia, Coney Island where the original owners came from Macedonia too.

A few stores over, the competition.

- [Brittany] I got three guys coming back.

- [Bill] Jackson Coney Island, where Brittany Craig is in charge.

- Thank you.

- [Bill] Long ago, both Virginia and Jackson were owned by the same family.

- I've heard all kinds of different stories.

I wasn't here in 1914, so I can't confirm any of 'em.

(Brittany laughs) - From what I understand, the documentation was destroyed at City hall when they had a fire, like, years ago.

- [Bill] Compare this to Detroit with this iconic Lafayette and American Coney Islands, originally owned by Greek brothers turned rivals.

- That's the similar story that we had here, yes.

The Macedonia brothers apparently could not see eye to eye on whatever the issue was.

So the one left and started the other one.

- [Bill] The Coney sauce here, a two step process.

- [Joe] We'll take some meat, drain some of the juices, put it in.

- [Bill] Getting the consistency right is key.

- [Joe] And we mix it up.

- [Bill] The Jackson Coney tastes a lot like Flint according to Coney advocate, Dave Liske, who leaves us with some sage advice.

- It's just, it's a state of mind.

I eat Coneys all over the country.

Have the Coney that you like, but also enjoy the other ones just like you would with pizza and hamburgers.

When in Flint have a Flint Coney, when in did Detroit have a Detroit Coney.

When in Jackson, same thing.