The parking lot was full and so were the outdoor tables at Captain Paul’s Firehouse Dogs on April 21 – the first day for new owners Patrick Jones and his mother, Debbie Jones.
The mother and son bought Captain Paul’s Hot Dogs – which has been a landmark and mainstay in Lawrence Township for more than 15 years – earlier this year after Paul and Janice Tweedly put it up for sale for health reasons.
Debbie Jones, who is a substitute teacher at the Lawrence Intermediate School, said that she and her son learned the hot dog and ice cream stand was for sale after the Tweedlys posted it on social media.
“It was just a crazy whim,” Debbie Jones said. “Patrick said he wanted to look at it. It is such a community place.”
They made an offer to buy the business and the property, and it was accepted.
Patrick Jones, who teaches special education at Mercer County Technical Schools, had always wanted to own a business, his mother said. Now, he has an eye toward using the hot dog and ice cream stand to teach life skills to some of his students.
For those wondering about the menu, it will stay the same. There will also be some familiar faces behind the counter, as Debbie and Patrick Jones have hired the employees who worked at Captain Paul’s Firehouse Dogs before it was sold.
Debbie Jones said they plan to continue to support fundraising efforts for nonprofit groups, just as the Tweedlys did when it was under their ownership.
“We will get back to fundraising, once we get on our feet,” she said. “It’s a lot – a good ‘lot.’ This is our first day. Paul and Janice have been wonderful mentors and friends.”
Tweedly, who is the “captain” in Captain Paul’s Firehouse Dogs, had intended to re-open the business in March after the customary winter break. But on his physician’s advice, the decision was made to sell the business.
Tweedly is a retired Trenton Fire Department captain and readily admitted that he fell into the restaurant business. He offered to help another Trenton firefighter who had opened an ice cream stand in the one-story cement building on Princeton Pike.
But when circumstances changed, Tweedly and his wife, Janice, took over the business in 2009 and expanded its offerings to include hot dogs and sandwiches, he said in an earlier interview.
Some of those expanded offerings reflected Tweedly’s days as a firefighter/chef. He loved preparing meals for the firefighters on his shift when he worked for the Trenton Fire Department.
While the menu originally featured just plain hot dogs after the Tweedlys took over, it was tweaked to offer variations on hot dogs as well as sandwiches. Some recipes were carry-overs from the firehouse, but others were the result of suggestions made by other people, he said.
Some of the sandwiches were named for soldiers. The “Dakota Meyer” barbecued pulled pork sandwich is named after U.S. Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Afghanistan in 2009.
The “Ben Moore” chicken tenders in barbecue sauce is named for U.S. Army Private First Class Benjamin Moore, who grew up in Bordentown. He was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2011.
And then there is the “Stormin’ Norman” kielbasa sandwich, which was named for U.S. Army Lt. General Norman Schwarzkopf. He was the commander of the United States Central Command and led the coalition forces in the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. He spent some of his childhood in Lawrence Township and Princeton.
