By Matt Clyburn

Main Street, New Britain is not the bustling byway that most Americans envision of a small New England city.

Storefronts and buildings are in disrepair and a large number of homeless people wander the streets.

Still, one tribute to a bygone era remains, reminding locals of how a great hot dog can bring the people of this fragile community together.

Capitol Lunch is a foodie landmark, one of the very few family-owned businesses deeply rooted in the community it serves. Right in the middle of Main Street, its customers are diverse and come for one thing: great food. Capitol Lunch cooks up between 700 and 1,500 hot dogs each day, served up by an assembly line of vocal cooks, clattering cutlery and the sauce that has all the locals talking.

On the days I visited, customers were parking both BMW’s and shopping carts outside.

“The price is right,” said one resident. “It draws people from all walks of life here, from the top of the socioeconomic ladder to the very bottom. Everybody likes a hot dog, it’s an American thing, like apple pie, motherhood and baseball.”

Gus Ververis, Jr. is the third generation of his family to run the hot dog joint with the famous sauce. And it’s truly a family affair – Gus’s fiancé, brother and father are all behind the counter on most days.

“Their dedication and hard work; really talking to the customers and putting out a really good product at a good price…I think just over the years kind of caught on,” Ververis said. “Their hard work paid off.”

Ververis knows that Capitol Lunch owes much of its success to the diverse and loyal customers that come to the establishment year after year.

“We have older customers that have been coming here for years, we have young and new customers that go to CCSU…[and] kids that come with grandfathers [who came] when they were kids with their grandfather,” said Ververis. “So everybody, all kinds of nationalities, they all love a hot dog.”

And the customers come from far and wide. One hometown girl and current North Carolina resident goes to the restaurant every time she comes home.

“I live in North Carolina so I don’t get to go to Capitol Lunch ever,” she said. “I come to Connecticut, I go to Capitol Lunch; last stop before I leave town.”

A sparkling reputation has even brought the Capitol Lunch name overseas – thanks to a few local fans in the military. Ververis recalls a customer that came in one day after arriving home from a business trip to Japan.

“He said he was in Tokyo at one of the local dining establishments and right on the front of the storefront there was a little piece of paper taped on to the front of the store saying ‘Capitol Lunch is number one,'” Ververis said. “One of the military guys from New Britain or this area over here decided to plant that up here and he shared that story with me, which is wild.”

Capitol Lunch might be an abandoned building anywhere else, but here in New Britain, a community keeps coming back to Main Street for the family-run melting pot that transports them to a time long since past.

“What can I say, we’ve been here 82 years, I hope to be here another 82 years,” Ververis said.

And the delicious hot dogs certainly don’t hurt.