Standing at the center of the courtyard of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia is a modest little hot dog stand affectionately known as Cafe Ground Zero. It has tendered its fare to hungry Pentagon officials for decades, but is perhaps most noteworthy for being the only known hot dog stand to come under satellite surveillance or to have at least two nuclear warheads targeting it at all times. At least, according to Cold War legend. And now, we’ve learned from the blogger How Now, Brownpau that Pentagon officials plan on tearing it down to make way for a new dining facility.
If you’ve ever been on an official tour of the Pentagon, you may have heard the story from one of the tour guides. According to Official Cold War Rumor — which could be Official Cold War Truth! (or could it?) — Soviet spies, using satellite photography, tracked people going into and coming out of the hot dog stand, and concluded that the structure was the entrance to the most super double top secret part of the whole facility, where personnel would enter and travel, Maxwell Smart-style, to a superfly spy bunker of singular importance. Having thus falsely (or perhaps truly!) concluded, the Soviets trained two intercontinental ballistic missiles at the hot dog stand. As information officer Brett Eaton tells it, “They thought this was the Pentagon’s most top secret meeting room, and the entire Pentagon was a large fortress built around this hot dog stand.”
In the past few years, the hot dog stand has been in a state of disuse, and a new $1.2 million dollar, full-service dining facility is in the works that will offer breakfast and lunch all year round, feature indoor seating, and even offer catering services to the Pentagon. Because of the landmark status of the Pentagon courtyard, the new facility will be about the same size as the old one, and, like the Pentagon, pentagonal. And, according to DefenseLink News, “…the wooden owl atop the current hot dog stand to ward off birds must be preserved and placed on the new structure.” OR SO THEY WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE.
While it is a pity to see a site that played such a rich role in area Cold War skullduggery fall by the wayside, we can all take comfort in the fact that Leonid Brezhnev never did manage to ascertain what made American hot dogs plump when cooked. Pentagon workers who nevertheless want to experience dining at a bona fide hot dog stand can still travel down 395 to Shirlington and eat at the Weenie Beenie, though it promises only danger of the gastrointestinal variety.
