Betty of Betty's World Famous Hotdogs Died

Betty Jo Stiles Garrett, age 75, died last Wednesday, September 3rd.

Betty owned Betty’s World Famous Hotdogs here in Marietta. Her chili she put on the dogs was spicy. The chili was spicy enough to loosen your sinuses and make your nose run. You might say, “upper-lip licking good.”

The restaurant is now Brandi’s World Famous Hotdogs, which still uses the same secret chili formula. It seems that I remember reading in the paper that Betty sold it to Brandi because she was getting up in years and had diabetes – and well, it was just time to retire.

In the year 2000 I worked for the Marietta branch of the Census Bureau. One day in the office I told a couple of workers I was going up to Betty’s World Famous Hotdogs for lunch. They wanted to know more about the hotdogs and chili. Which, I told them about the chili – to me, a hotdog is a hotdog.

I made the mistake of saying, “Can I bring you back anything?”

Suddenly everybody were giving me notes with what they wanted and the money – we had to call and get prices. I think the order came to between $150 and $200.

But, one of the reasons I wanted to go to Betty’s was the people. To me it is interesting and a pleasure to watch the non-pretentious people who have lunch there…. Having to go pickup the huge order took all the fun out of it.

Probably no more than a couple of years after that is when I read the article about Betty selling the restaurant to Brandi. Then after I read the article a day or two later Betty and I rode the same elevator at Kennestone Hospital. She looked at me and spoke. I am sure she couldn’t place me, but I am also sure she had a pretty good idea where she saw me.

My neighbor told me she saw in the paper that Betty had died last week. I dug through a pile of papers to find the obituary. Apparently she was living in Madisonville, Tennessee, when she died.

She had a bunch of survivors, I hope they all liked spicy hotdogs – it is their legacy.