A Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction and University of Pittsburgh alumnus, Michael Chabon is among the most celebrated American writers of the last 30 years. So it’s fitting that during a return visit to his adopted city’s hub of academia, the author of “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” delivered a pitch-perfect reminiscence of a unique yet ubiquitous Pittsburgh experience.

“The holy grail of sitting at a table at ‘the O’ next to a brutally loud video game at three o’clock in the morning, drunk out of my mind inhaling a basket of cheese fries so massive that it is a feature of USGS maps of the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area,” he recounted during a 2001 talk at the Carnegie Institute.

The Original Hot Dog Shop, aka “The O,” a Pittsburgh landmark since 1960, closed quietly and abruptly in the last week, donating 7 tons of potatoes to charity.

The restaurant at the corner of Forbes Avenue and South Bouquet Street in Oakland with the iconic neon signs was nationally famous and indelibly woven into the fabric of Pittsburgh’s university and health care community in Oakland. Endearingly known to some as “The Dirty O,” the restaurant’s name came from its wieners, but it was arguably more famous for its french fries.

“A lot of people love Potato Patch fries, but there was no comparison,” WQED documentarian Rick Sebak said. “O fries were the best.”

“Going to miss those fries!” Pitt football’s head coach Pat Narduzzi wrote on Twitter.

The Original Hot Dog Shop was featured in Mr. Sebak’s documentary “A Hot Dog Program,” which aired nationally on PBS. When the crew filmed at The O in the late ’90s, there were people of “all walks of life” lining up for the shop’s famous franks and fries.

“So many people talked about the fact that it was a place where everyone was on the same level,” Mr. Sebak said.

The Original Hot Dog Shop was founded by brothers Sydney and Morris “Moe” Simon in 1960. According to Mr. Sebak, the brothers rushed to open in 1960 in time for the opening of the World Series at Forbes Field. They originally intended to feature burgers in the shop’s name but they couldn’t acquire burgers in time for the series.

Hot dogs it was then, the true “traditional” apparently being with mustard, relish, onions and pickles.

The dogs had a tight skin that would snap when you bit into it, Mr. Sebak said. “They had natural casing wieners, and I know it sounds funny, but I think that’s really important.”

In a 2009 love letter to the Original, former Post-Gazette reporter and mayoral spokesman Tim McNulty explained, “The signature O dog is a pork and beef mix. Silver Star Meats makes the natural casing dog according to a secret recipe that [Sydney] Simon, the O's co-founder, concocted.”

“The fries are No. 1 Idaho potatoes cooked once in peanut oil, allowed to cool and then fried again when ordered. This is the same method used in fancy French bistro cooking, except the O serves them in overflowing paper tubs to bustling and inebriated crowds at 2 a.m.”

Sydney Simon would eventually take over the business, and in 2000, he changed the neon sign to read “Essie’s Original Hot Dog Shop” in honor of his late wife.

“No hot dog roundup would be complete without Essie's Original Hot Dog Shop in Pittsburgh,” The New York Times wrote in 2002. “While the Steel City's dogs have no regional quirks, the Original's griddle-grilled beauties have one thing going for them: flavor.”

Sydney Simon died in 2009 after a long battle with cancer; Moe Simon passed away earlier this month. Bruce Simon and Terry Campasano, Sydney’s adult children, ran the spot in recent years. For a long time, they battled rumors that the restaurant was closing, even as the business landscape in Oakland changed drastically. Neither could be reached for comment.

Rich Garland is executive director of the The Blessing Board, a Christian organization that typically helps needy families and individuals secure gently used furniture for their living spaces. His pastor at Hebron United Presbyterian Church in Penn Hills asked him if they could help distribute 7 tons — 14,000 pounds — donated from the O to local charities during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We moved a lot of potatoes in the last week,” he said.

Mr. Garland said they were able to distribute 110 50-pound boxes to the 911th Airlift Wing for military families. Another 100 boxes went to the Bridge City Church Food Bank in North Braddock, 60 boxes to Light of Life Ministries in the North Side and 10 to Union Mission in Latrobe.

Of the beloved shop and its staff, Mr. Sebak said, “I will miss them eternally.”

First Published: April 22, 2020, 10:51 a.m.