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Hello, Eaters! “Street food” means different things to different people. When Carlos Meza was living in Caracas, Venezuela, street food was the hot dog cart he and his friends would go to after playing baseball. Street food, he said, meant “get together, eat, have a good time and then go home.”
Meza serves his kind of Venezuelan street food at Caracas Dog, an eatery in the Woodbine Food Hall, at 545 W. 700 South in Salt Lake City. Meza and his wife, Rosette Antela, who’s originally from Cuba, opened the hot dog stand on Sept. 1.
The couple had a deadline to get Caracas Dog open: Antela was pregnant. Last month, two weeks after Caracas Dog opened, Meza said, Antela gave birth to their first child, Oliver.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Carlos Meza, the owner of Caracas Dog, a Venezuelan street food establishment at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
Meza moved to Utah three years ago, after nine years in Florida. An uncle lived here, so Meza took a road trip that ended in Salt Lake City. “I felt at home here,” Meza said, adding that the Wasatch Mountains reminded him of Mont Ávila back home in Venezuela.
He worked as a delivery driver, he said, but knew he needed to find a more permanent line of work when Antela became pregnant. “We needed something to support the family,” he said.
Antela’s craving for good pizza coincided with Meza making a delivery to Mozz Artisan Pizza in the Woodbine. While there, Meza noticed that another storefront in the food hall was vacant. So the couple started work to create Caracas Dog there.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Carlos Meza, the owner of Caracas Dog, a Venezuelan street food establishment at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
The menu has four main items: A build-it-yourself hot dog (starting at $5.75); a fully loaded hot dog, the perro con todo ($6.50); the pepito dog ($9.50), which loads beef and/or chicken on an 8-inch bun, with onions, cabbage, corn and peppers; and the big monster (pictured at top), the enrollado or “street roll” ($12), which loads up the beef and/or chicken on a soft flatbread roll with all the veggies that come with a pepito dog. (Caracas Dog also offers vegan sausage as a meat substitute.)
Meza said he gets his ingredients from local suppliers, and makes his signature cilantro-and-garlic mayo in house every morning. To see what I ordered, read down to the “Dish of the Week” entry.
Live deliciously,
Sean
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Caracas Dog, a Venezuelan street food establishment at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
Food News
• Utah has dropped from the top spot on the list of candy-loving states, according to Innerbody Research, which monitors health and wellness trends. In the company’s annual survey (taken from analyzing Google Trends), Utah has fallen to No. 5 on the list of states that love candy; Nebraska has claimed the top position, followed by Iowa, Kentucky and West Virginia. Also, according to the research, Utah’s favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups — so expect a lot of them in your children’s trick-or-treat bags.
Openings:
• Beast From the East Sandwichery is preparing to open its second location, at 1702 S. Main, Salt Lake City, in the yellow building that used to house Loco Burger. Megan Davis, who co-owns the company with her husband, Kris, told me “we wanted a family-friendly location, and we wanted to grow more.” No date is set for the opening of the new place, which she said will be connected to the bar Manny’s. Beast’s first sandwich shop, which operates in Cruzrs Saloon, at 3943 S. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City, will remain open — but you must be 21 or older to go there, because, you know, “saloon.”
(By the way, folks at Loco Burger told me they’re looking for a spot to replace the Main Street location. In the meantime, if you want their signature Mexican burger, their restaurant at 5470 S. 4220 West, Kearns, is still going.)
• Tribune food reporter Kolbie Peterson reported back in May that Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee plans to open in Sugar House, at 701 E. 2100 South (in the former By the Bucket spaghetti place). Sidecar this week announced the shop’s projected opening date: Jan. 18. The Sugar House shop will be the company’s first location outside of California.
• Shamrock Foodservice Warehouse — which sells bulk food products for restaurant operators, home shoppers, food trucks, caterers, small businesses and nonprofits — is opening its first retail store in Utah, at 7880 S. 1300 East, Sandy. The grand opening was scheduled for Friday at 8:30 a.m., with a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting, and a donation to the Utah Food Bank.
Booze (and Drink!) News
• Bambara, at 202 S. Main St. (inside the Kimpton Hotel Monaco), is staging an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired wine dinner, on Tuesday, starting at 6:39 p.m. Guests will enjoy a five-course dinner, with “each dish inspired by the gothic romance and shadowed beauty of Poe’s tales.” Each dish also will be paired with a French red wine. Price is $150 per person (plus the cost of the wine); prepaid reservations required, through OpenTable. Go to bambara-slc.comfor details.
Dish of the Week
(Sean P. Means | The Salt Lake Tribune) The perro con todo, or fully loaded hot dog, from Caracas Dog in the Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake City.
With hot dogs, it starts with the basics: A bun, a weiner, ketchup and mustard. After that, the difference is in the details.
At Caracas Dog, the perro con todo — the fully loaded hot dog ($6.50) — includes corn, lots of shredded Gouda cheese, and potato sticks to give it a satisfying crunch. The key, though, is the house-made cilantro-garlic mayo, which provides a tangy, tasty bite. (I got mine with the vegan sausage, which added $2 to the price.)