Bubba's Hot Dogs Brings a Chicago Original to West Tennessee

A Yuma couple originally from Chicago has brought a taste of Windy City culture to West Tennessee with their food truck, Bubba's Hot Dogs.

Joe and Kelly Malikowski moved from the Illinois metropolis to rural Carroll County just over four years ago after visiting some friends who had recently moved to the area.

Bubba's serves not the more-famous "Chicago dog," but its lesser-known predecessor, the Chicago-style "Depression dog," which consists of an all-beef Vienna hot dog on a plain white bun topped with mustard, relish, onions, sport peppers and hand-cut french fries.

Joe told The Banner, "One of the things we missed the most was this style of hot dog."

For the first several years of their time in Tennessee, the pair worked at the Mic Stand Bar and Grill in Huntingdon, Joe as general manager and Kelly as bar manager.

They knew when they moved that they wanted to have their own business here, but didn't decide until last year what path to take. Once they decided, it took about six months to acquire a truck and get it operational.

Kelly has always worked in the food industry, and Joe also has extensive food service experience, besides serving as a firefighter in Chicago.

Kelly says food service is something she's always been comfortable doing. "I followed in my mother's footsteps. It's something I've always been very familiar with. It's providing the best possible customer service that I can. I know when I go out, I want that exceptional service and to be happy when I leave. So I want to be able to provide that for others."

Joe first ventured into the industry as a server because it was "easy, quick money." Then, he said, "I'd leave [it], and I'd always wind up right back to it. It's always been an easy thing to go back to when I was looking for something different… And then it kind of took off from there. I got more involved, I got into management. So, when we decided to do this, we both have the experience and background from all ends of it, and we knew what we had to do. So we thought we would do good with it."

They considered a brick-and-mortar restaurant, but were drawn to the flexibility and mobility of the food truck. Joe said, "We can pick up and move wherever we want. We can go where we want. We go to all the festivals and stuff like that that go on all summer."

Bubba's launched on a Tuesday in mid-April, setting up in Huntingdon. "We were kind of sticking around the Carroll County-Huntingdon area in the beginning, just to get the feel for it and start getting our name out there. The more people that started coming out, we started getting invited to more places."

As of this mid-July interview, Bubba's had ventured as far as Lexington, Buchanan and Humboldt, with a stop in Jackson planned for later in the month.

Joe said, besides missing the food and family members up north, "I absolutely love it down here. Especially this area of Carroll County. It's a smaller community. It's how everybody sticks together. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's friends with everybody. You don't get stuff like that up in Chicago."

Kelly added, "I love it here. It's nice. It's calm. It's relaxing. It was a big culture shock at first, because we're used to the city life, but I super enjoy it. I absolutely love the community here. Everyone is always very supportive. So I truly do enjoy being down here, I just need some more of the Chicago food!"

Kelly also shared the origin of the business' name. Bubba was the nickname Kelly's mother, Marge, gave to her son, Mikey, when he was born. Mikey died in 2021 at age 22, and Marge died in 2024. "It was my way to make a tribute to them."

Kelly touched on some future hopes and goals for Bubba's, "Eventually, if it continues to grow like it is, we will get a second trailer so we can have multiple locations. If that continues to grow, we'll decide on a brick-and-mortar."

Regular updates on upcoming locations can be found on the Bubba's Hot Dogs Facebook page.