It’s a place that exists three nights a week for two hours and then disappears; a place that few Amherst residents know about, but where many college students frequent on their weekend nights; a place encompassing a pizzeria, a bar and a small expanse of sidewalk where a food vendor unfurls the umbrella over his cart while waiting for his nightly business at Club Sidewalk to pick up.
Mike McGale, better known as the sausage man, pulls his pick-up truck alongside the sidewalk outside McMurphy’s Uptown Tavern in downtown Amherst. Hitched to his truck is a large cherry red trailer with gold leaf lettering displaying the words “Mike’s Hot Dogs and Sausages.” Upon opening the trailer’s large metal door, he wheels a 24-gallon propane tank, a grill and a condiments stand with a large Blue Seal brand umbrella past the metal fencing separating the road from the curb and onto the sidewalk.
Once McGale has all his equipment gathered, he adjusts a few more valves on the grill, shifts the pieces of the cart around, and affixes a light to the umbrella pole. Taking a long drag from his cigarette, McGale steps out from the cart and looks over his work. After rubbing a smudge of grease off the menu board, he glances at his watch and sees it’s 11:15 p.m. It’ll be another 15 minutes until the streets fill with college kids, rambunctious after a full week of classes and studying.
After parking the truck and trailer further down the road, McGale returns to the cart to prepare the food. With a set of tongs, he places 10 pre-boiled Italian sausages onto the grill. He then grabs a 6-pound can of onions and peppers, dumping it into a large skillet next to the grill. The skillet hisses and steam immediately rises into the air while McGale toasts a few hot dog buns.
“It’s for the customer,” McGale explains as he prods a dangling onion back into the pan. “It might not do much in this weather, but at least it’ll keep their hands warm and their stomachs hungry.”
College students and town officials alike refer to the locale surrounding McGale as Club Sidewalk. At a stretch of sidewalk that extends from Antonio’s Pizzeria down to the Monkey Bar, where once the bars close around 1 a.m., people spill out onto the sidewalk, buying food and enjoying the night air for a little longer before going home.
This is where McGale thrives as a businessman. Some people see a food vendor and see a simple job that doesn’t take much in entrepreneurial or business skills. At least not anything a membership into the School of Management would need. But for the sausage man, his business is a work of art.
“I’m a decent person, with quality food, in a decent atmosphere,” McGale explains. His main business philosophy is that he cares about his product as much as for the people he sells to. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling something simple, like sausages to drunk kids, or you work in an office building in the city – you need to do the best job you can do.
McGale continues by explaining that it takes a lot of money, hard work and planning to get into food vending and to own your own self-reliant business.
You “can’t just get into the business. A lot of people think it’s easy and that you can buy a couple books and you’re all set. It’s those kinds of people who don’t make it. People say drunken kids can’t taste lousy food, and it doesn’t matter if you put your best into what you do. But if something tastes lousy and you’re drunk, you know it.”
This dedication shows in the way people come up to McGale and praise his food. Stand by him for 15 minutes, and you will see people from as far as Springfield who came to Amherst just to buy one of his Italian Sausages. Ask anyone who has waited in line to get into McMurphy’s and they will tell you about what a “drunk sausage” tastes like.
To become such a free spirit took a lot of navigating through red tape and a certain amount of bureaucracy. McGale needed to get a lunch cart license, food handler’s permit, Board of Health state license, and a hawker and peddler’s license. After taking a 6-hour course for the Board of Health he needed to find a base of operations to properly refrigerate his specially ordered food, and to properly clean and sanitize his equipment.
“All this just to cook sausages, which are hard to screw up,” McGale says.
The reason I painted this picture of the “drunk sausage” man is because he is a remarkable individual that few people recognize as such. He treats everyone he encounters as a close friend and will talk to you about whatever you want, whether it is a friendly ear to tell your nightly story to, or as an advice giver.
So next time you are at Club Sidewalk, stop for a second and talk to the sausage man. You may be surprised at what he has to say; your appetite will definitely be pleased you did.
Ben Feder is a Collegian columnist.
