Preparing for a conversation about hot dogs might feel like a predisposition to the mundane. Casings, fillers, distribution, who wants to talk about that?
On the whole, to borrow a pun, many don't really care how the sausage is made; just that the end result is tasty. That's the beauty of Bryce Rech, Gleezy CEO and co-founder, who could elevate such a topic on hot dogs to the same excitement level as when a 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters. Well, almost.
The point is, only a couple months after getting the company off the ground, Gleezy — the first premium hot dog company by golfers, for golfers — is hoping to swath a new path forward at golf courses with its double-smoked brisket hot dog and Carolina Dog Sauce.
The goal is straightforward: establish the reimagined food as the golf industry's hot dog of choice. It's not an overstatement. Rech is the type who when someone tells him to reach for the stars, he'd rather extend into another galaxy.
"You can name the bag of chips you ate at the golf course," says Rech in a long and entertaining interview. "You can name the beer you drank. You can name the candy bar you ate, or the soda you drank. But if you asked 100 golfers to name the brand of the hot dog you ate, you would probably get 100 'I don't knows.'"
That, in itself, motivated him.
Before the idea was firmly rooted, Rech had been an entrepreneur launching successful buildouts — from maternity clothing to restaurants to a law firm with his wife, Kate Rech, a well-known family attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's always been about bringing brands to life. Much like walking through a cornfield maze, finding a way out, Rech feels each business undertaking helped solve a personal labyrinth.
In 2020, he made a list of what sort of business would sate an inner hunger. Invariably, as an avid player, every list contained golf.
Engaging and affable, Rech intimated the Gleezy idea came about after he played a well-known course a couple years ago, paid large sums of money to do so and was underwhelmed by the lukewarm hot dog he ate at the turn. He didn't know it at the time, but that incident stuck in his mind like plaque to an artery. He knew it was there, felt he should be doing something about it, before gradually bringing the lens more into focus.
"I went to bed one night, woke up the next day and I looked at my wife, telling her, 'I think I'm going to launch a hot dog brand for golf.' And my wife [an attorney] usually shrugs at my entrepreneurial fortitude," says Rech laughing. "She thinks we should stick to the bread and butter, but I've got to do something that I can wake up to every day and be really excited about."
From that point, Rech started immersing himself in fine details about recipes, distribution and whether a hot dog business could make money. He also bounced the idea off those he trusted. A general manager of one PGA Tour-hosted course told Rech he should pursue it.
Rech grew his network. Friends of friends were introducing him to those within the golf medium and to business leaders who could lend guidance in various areas. What did Rech know about chefs who developed flavor profiles? Well, not much. Industry acquaintances helped him. It went that way with practically all of the hot dog manufacturing process.
For about two years he and other co-founders (seven to date) — and nine advisors composed of general managers, golf executives, production professionals and influencers — incrementally dabbled in tastings. Rech says he easily consumed more than 200-300 hot dogs in the last year and a half. Everyone knew one thing: the final product could not be like a standard hot dog.
In the early stages, Gleezy told one of its original manufacturing partners about maybe adding brisket.
"At the time, we were working with somebody in Texas and they had a ton of smoked meat experience," says Rech. "And they said, 'Yeah, I think that could work.' And so that kind of started it.
"But we knew the type of chew we wanted, knew that we wanted a really clean, lean product that you're not afraid to tell people what's in it. It's pretty easy to say it's just beef. There are no fillers."
Finalizing the brisket required sampling. If it was 100 percent brisket, Rech says, it would chew like bark. So Gleezy settled on 7-8% brisket because it's the most that could be added before the complexity of the product might become compromised. After settling on the recipe, Gleezy also decided to make the dog caseless, adding crispness. Today, the product is manufactured in Chicago, or as Rech says, “Chicago is king of the dog!”
There were a couple other telling moments Rech and team were onto something. The first occurred at Pinehurst Resort when Gleezy presented the product. Rech says it was like a Shark Tank episode when they thought they were only meeting with the resort's assistant food and beverage director.
"Instead, we walked into a kitchen full of every important person in the Pinehurst world," Rech says. "And half of the room absolutely loved the name. And half of the room hated it."
The name was derived from "glizzy," or how a younger generation refers to a hot dog. It wasn't lost on Rech that the term also has alternative meanings.
Afterward, co-founder Gary Williams — the former "Morning Drive" host and current '5 Clubs Golf" host of on the Golf Channel — told Rech they had to go with the name because every consumer would remember it. Rech adds the name "resonates with golfers. It resonates with country clubs. It resonates with the PGA Tour."
The second realization that this could work was borne out of good, old-fashioned pavement pounding. Rech and team provided samples galore at various golf courses. They'd measure reaction, which told them whether they were close.
Rech recalls the moment he felt Gleezy arrived. His team went to Charlotte Country Club and a few high-profile members, some involved in the sports world, lauded the hot dog.
"They took a bite, kind of looked at us and were like, 'This is insane. Like you guys have spent two years on developing this? We get it. We see it. It makes sense,'" says Rech.
All of this would be remiss without mentioning the Carolina Dog Sauce meant to be added to the brisket dog. Being from the Carolinas, the intent was to perfect a tangy mustard and vinegar sauce complement, with a slight hot kick, that would accentuate the dog the way jelly goes with peanut butter.
As a marketing ploy, Rech thought, if every hot dog came with a sauce packet labeled as Gleezy or Carolina Hot Sauce then the name would gain traction. There were times Rech thought about maybe leveraging just the sauce because it's equally important to the dog. He concluded the brisket dog was the anchor.
So far, business has been brisk. To date, Gleezy is selling its product in more than 20 states via US Foods, Sysco and PFG. Units sold hit 50,000 in the first six weeks. Golf courses, restaurants and sports arenas are seeing an uptick in sales; one arena has experienced 40% growth in hot dogs sold after adopting Gleezy.
Through the years, certain products have been synonymous with leagues or professional sports. Anheuser-Busch has long been affiliated with Major League Baseball. The same applies to Rolex and Wimbledon for 45-plus years. PepsiCo has been marketed as an official drink in NHL arenas. This is the status Gleezy hopes to reach in golf, where it one day might be recognized as the official hot dog of the sport.
For that to happen, Rech admits much more work needs to be done. Yet since the company launched in September there hasn't been a slow day. Everyone hoping it succeeds talks constantly or is in iteration mode for potential new releases down the road. First things first. Rech sometimes pinches himself.
"The meetings usually start with laughter," he says. "Because we're like, 'Are we really meeting about hot dogs right now?' And we all kind of laugh. And then at the end of the meeting, we're all like, 'OK, yeah, I guess we're doing this.'"
With any luck, the potential is there for it to have a bigger impact than famous regional course staples — such as the Olympic Club's Burgerdog, the pimento cheese sandwich at Augusta National or the mouth-watering Crunchy Cream Pie at Firestone Country Club (Akron, Ohio).
Looking at it from a revisionist point of view, the idea has been out there all along. So it went with fire, the wheel and bread. Maybe now, in its centuries-old history, the time could be right for the hot dog to have a new chapter written.
"It kind of feels like one of those things where when you say, 'Hey, you know, I should have thought of that,'" Rech says. "It's been right there the whole time, but no one's done it."
