Nathan’s Says Its Coney Island Flagship Will Stay Put

A rendering of the city’s plans for Coney Island, showing the Boardwalk looking east toward the 27-acre entertainment and amusement district. Nathan’s Famous, the historic hot dog restaurant, will stay in its current location. (Image: New York City Department of City Planning)

Nathan’s Famous, the hot dog stand by the sea, is not going anywhere, the company says.

Reacting to newspaper reports that suggested that the city’s revival of Coney Island could mean the end of the hot dog stand, the chief executive of Nathan’s Famous, Eric Gatoff, released a statement on Tuesday saying “we fully intend to maintain our historic flagship restaurant” at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island.

The rumors about the end of Nathan’s stemmed from a draft environmental impact statement released by the city on Friday. The report, referring to “impacts” of the rezoning of Coney Island, states that Nathan’s Famous “is assumed to be replaced under the proposed actions with a new building containing hotel, amusement, retail and enhancing uses.”

But city officials and Mr. Gatoff said that the language in the report, which refers to a worst-case projection, had been misinterpreted. Nathan’s Famous owns its building on Surf Avenue, and though the proposed rezoning would allow far more lucrative uses for the land — like the building of a hotel or a theater — Nathan’s can do with the spot as it pleases (though it does raise the seemingly unusual possibility of a hot dog stand in the ground floor of a hotel).

Mr. Gatoff said: “There is no intention to replace or demolish our flagship location. In fact, the Coney Island Development Corporation’s own drawings of its intended redevelopment continue to show Nathan’s Famous in the same location on which it has stood for 93 years.”