By the numbers: Millions of reasons to stand in line for a hot dog at Pink’s

16 million: The approximate number of hot dogs sold at Pink’s since the hot dog stand opened in Los Angeles in 1939.

Pink’s will celebrate its 80th birthday in November, at the same location on La Brea Avenue where Paul and Betty Pink opened the stand with a $50 pushcart bought with a loan from Betty’s mother. Pink’s sold hot dogs for 10 cents at the time. “They were lucky to sell 50 hot dogs a day in those early years,” says Richard Pink, Paul and Betty’s son, who now owns the business with his sister, Beverly, and wife, Gloria (Paul and Betty retired in 1985). Pink’s existing hot dog stand was built in 1946.

Thanks to local popularity and not a few tourists, Pink’s sales have reached about 547,000 hot dogs per year for the last 15 years. Richard said that his father used to say about the hot dog business: “After 40 years, you begin to make a few bucks.”

In addition to those half-million-plus hot dogs, Pink’s goes through 152,880 pounds of French fries, 65,520 pounds of chili, 146,000 pounds of Polish dogs, 312,000 pounds of bacon and 10,092 pounds of sauerkraut every year.