Pronto Pup Opens Grandly This Weekend in Rockaway Beach

The new Rockaway Beach version of Pronto Pup, the little chain that got its start in Beach back in the 1930s, will hold its grand opening this weekend in the tiny beachside town along highway 101.

Owned by Portland-based attorney Anthony McNamer, Pronto Pup is believed by many to be the prototypical corn dog—except that Pronto Pups are cased in fried pancake batter, which McNamer thinks makes them taste better. The dogs are believed to have originated courtesy of the hot dog-vending Portlanders, George and Vera Boyington, who invented the battered coating back in the day as a means to prevent their buns from getting soggy.

There is some debate about whether or not Oregon is home to the first corn dog, or if Pronto Pups are corn dogs at all. But McNamer says that all arrows indicate that it happened here first. Sorry, Texas and Minnesota.

According to this brief YouTube video, Pronto Pup will be managed by McNamer's mother and staffed by local high school students. It will serve nine different kinds of pups (beef, pickle, zucchini), fries, tots, and soft serve ice cream.

When McNamer, who has a second home in Rockaway Beach, was researching the project, he thought it odd that there was no Pronto Pup retail store in the city that birthed it.

"I thought, ‘That's weird,'" he says. "The town should at least have a giant corndog statue or something?"

And thanks to the installation of a 30-foot fiberglass dog that's been perched atop the Rockaway Beach brick and mortar, it does, making Pronto Pup a bonafide roadside attraction.

Per the Willamette Week, this weekend's grand opening festivities include $2 corn dogs, $1 soft serve ice creams, and free rides on the mechanical (and much smaller) Pronto Pup, parked by the business' front door.