Jordan Eichenblatt will tell you that he is not the owner of Cholo Dogs.
He credits the business to Franco Furtero.
“We (Eichenblatt and his business partner Chris Delahoz) went on a trip to Mexico for one of our clients, and we came across this hotdog cart,” Eichenblatt said. “And he had the hot dogs, we’re talking to him, and he said he’s moving to Orlando. We’re like, ‘We’re from Orlando.’ His name is Franco. We became friends, and he said, ‘Why don’t you guys operate this for me?’”
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And so Cholo Dogs made its way to Orlando, while its enigmatic owner remains something of a mystery.
Eichenblatt’s story is less of a mystery as a Central Florida native.
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“I grew up in Orlando — born and raised. (I) left in 2009, went to college, went and kind of started my career, and then somehow, I’m back here on my dad’s couch in like 2012, and I’ve been here since,” he said.
Eichenblatt has definitely made the most of his homecoming. In addition to Cholo Dogs, he also co-owns a T-shirt company and an ad agency.
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“(I like) anything creative and fun that puts a smile on people’s faces. We have an awesome team — our ad agency is called HIFIVE — we have an awesome team there and everyone’s essentially a part of everything that we do. We bought a company called Orlando Shirts that was (started) by two sisters,” he said. “Life’s too short to not have a fun job.”
The fun with Cholo Dogs got started in 2019, according to Eichenblatt. However, the business hit a pretty significant hurdle early on.
“Boom, COVID hit. And so it was just like, kind of figuring out what to do after that. I mean, we were only open — it seemed like forever — but September 2019 to February 2020,” he said.
The Cholo Dog team ended up starting their own outdoor food truck event called Parking Lot Party to help bring customers out again.
“You could probably fit about 15 cars in the parking lot where we had it, and we had about eight food trucks, and every single one sold out in the pouring rain, and then we did it the next month and pouring rain again, sold out,” Eichenblatt said.
The event proved to be a success and helped the business weather the worst of the pandemic. Since then, Cholo Dogs has been able to get itself into some prominent locations, in the Amway Center and, coming soon, a location in Exploria Stadium.
On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Eichenblatt talks about “slinging weens” all around Orlando. He also shares how some of the hot dogs got their names and the April Fools pranks Cholo Dogs have pulled.
Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Florida Foodie is a biweekly podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.