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Nathan's Famous Celebrating 100 Years With 5-Cent Hot Dogs

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Nathan's Famous is celebrating 100 years of hot dogs with 1916-prices this weekend.

"When Nathan Handwerker opened up his nickel hot dog stand in Coney Island, at that time hot dogs were just being introduced to Coney Island and the predominant price was 10 cents," president Wayne Norbitz told 1010 WINS. "He had this marketing idea that he could sell his hot dogs for 5 cents and that would attract a lot of attention."

Although much has changed in the past century, the recipe for the famous hot dogs has remained the same.

"Handwerker and his wife developed this great high-quality all beef hot dog with a special seasoning and that hot dog has never changed in all of these years," Norbitz said.

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Nathan's will be selling hot dogs at their original price of 5 cents at its iconic location on the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday. There is a limit of two per customer.

For those who can't make it out to Brooklyn, Nathan's is offering customers nationwide some other deals. Participating restaurants will be offering a buy one, get one for 5 cents deal on hot dogs. A similar deal will apply on packs of hot dogs and supermarkets across the country. To register for the deals, click here.

Norbitz expects tens of thousands of customers as beachgoers flock to Coney Island for the unofficial start to summer this weekend.

"This is nirvana, that's it. This is the center of the universe," one man said.

"You have to come to Coney, it's very special, it's very mystical," one woman said.

Coney Island and the city's other public beaches will officially open Saturday for the season.

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