The tale of Snap-O-Razzo—the Las Vegas-born hot dog brand that started up during the pandemic and already supplies stadiums and grocery stores across the country with high-quality, maplewood-smoked meat products—is really the story of a promising pastry chef who has been making savvy moves since his career first catapulted him to Las Vegas more than 20 years ago.
Long Island, New York, native Ralph Perrazzo founded Snap-O-Razzo when COVID closures were decimating the restaurant industry. He was “sitting at home, not knowing what was going on” after closing his BBD’s eatery at Palace Station, considering his limited options.
“I realized I can’t even go be a chef somewhere else, because everything was shut down. I never had so much free time in my life,” he says. “My fiancé said, ‘Why not sell your hot dogs? Everyone loves your hot dogs.’
“I used to go to food events and sell hot dogs made from breaking down a whole beef carcass, doing in-house butchering [at restaurants] and using the trim to make great hot dogs. I’d be watching famous chefs doing caviar and foie gras canapés at these events while I’m doing hot dogs, with a bigger line.”
Ralph Perrazzo
Perrazzo, who had introduced his dogs to local foodies at a Whiskey in the Wilderness event, then took the next step with a limited online sale, which sold out in two hours and forced him to shut down the webpage because he couldn’t keep up with orders. “Then it was like, OK, I’m gonna take my life savings and drop it on this.”
After closing his first big Snap-O-Razzo deal with the Las Vegas Raiders to sell hot dogs at Allegiant Stadium, he focused on breaking through with national distributors. Now the products are in 29 states, at historic eateries like Tail o’ the Pup in West Hollywood, and thanks to a recent deal, available at more than 40 Smith’s and Kroger stores throughout Nevada.
In addition to beef and pork-and-beef hot dogs, Snap-O-Razzo sells buns, sauces and seasonings, essentially everything a vendor needs to create an elite hot dog experience. The natural lamb casings and premium meats maintain that all-American, nostalgic bite, and there’s no MSG, fillers, additives, gluten or unnatural flavors. They’re higher in protein and lower in fat and sodium than most brands, and Perrazzo’s extensive trial-and-error research has enabled him to optimize his dogs for specific cooking methods.
“There’s a hot dog for every operation. At Allegiant, it’s a griddled dog, and people come down from the upper deck, because they smell it sizzling,” he says. “We’re big on education. I tell [buyers] to hold the hot dog in your hand and shake it—which is hilarious when you have big CEOs of companies flopping these other dogs around like a rubber band—and mine is this stiff thing because it’s a real meat product.”
Perrazzo was trying to work his way up in New York City at a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant in 2001 when he was placed in pastry, “a different kind of cooking, more focused and technical, and I took it on real well,” he says. He first landed in Las Vegas as the pastry chef at the legendary Bradley Ogden restaurant at Caesars Palace, then was grabbed by Pure Management Group and helped open Social House at Treasure Island.
He was ready to combine sweet and savory and move back to New York in 2008, when he opened the first version of BBD’s, which stood for beers, burgers and desserts. “It should have been called beers, burgers, dogs,” he says, since the bar and grill concept was centered on his newfound love of butchering and making burgers and sausages.
His second go-round in Las Vegas was supposed to bring BBD’s to the Palms when Station Casinos acquired the off-Strip resort, but then the company moved the project to Palace Station. It opened in August 2018 and closed in November 2019. “We had great clientele, but it was the wrong location,” Perrazzo says. “It just didn’t make sense. We had all these fancy people taking cars [from the Strip] over to eat at BBD’s at Palace Station.”
The relationship with Station continues, with Snap-O-Razzo selling hot dogs to the company. And Perrazzo, always a fan of Las Vegas and its unique hospitality industry and dining scene, continues to build his rep here and across the country. Next up is a no-sugar product, Snap-O-Razzo’s Beefy Butcher Dog, made for dirty-water cooking, steaming or grilling. “It’s the first of its kind,” Perrazzo says. “I’m seriously proud of that one.”
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