CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- After 22 years of selling open-flame cooked hot dogs and sausages on the streets of Charlotte, "Uptown Donnie" will call it quits on Friday.
His real name is Donnie Cooke, and he'll tell you, "Cooke is my name and cooking is my game."
He has been a long-time fixture at the intersection of Third and South Tryon Streets but now he said it is time to go.
"I'm getting a little older. The cold is colder and the hot is hotter," he said.
His cart features an open-flame grill that has cooked thousands of hot dogs for everyone from city CEO's to the homeless whom Donnie will sometimes help out.
Cooke is a Charlotte native and one of the city's biggest boosters.
"We came downtown when I was young just to go shopping and now there is not much shopping but we are one of the biggest banking city's around," he said.
As Cooke was talking, his wife Colleen walked over to see him from her office just a block away at the Chamber of Commerce.
"I will miss having him on the corner and being able to see him anytime I want during the day," she said smiling. "Yes, I can keep an eye on him!"
His customers, like Michael Whitlow will miss him.
"He makes some of the best sausage in town. I am from Chicago so I know a little bit about Polish sausage," Whitlow said.
Cooke is not giving up cooking entirely. He is planning on going to work cooking at a restaurant run by a family member.
He is not sure yet what that is going to be like.
"I really won't know how to act till I do it, because I am part of the street," he said.
He admitted that in his heart he will miss the friends he has made over those 22 years.
"Talking to people every day. People come up here anytime of the day. They may not be eating but they stop and talk."
