For the past 16 years and four months, Sayed M. Sayied has gotten up at 4:30 a.m. to drive his hot dog cart to Denver from Fort Collins.
He arrives downtown at the corner of 17th and Market well before most of his customers get to the office and sets up the typical street food offerings: hot dogs, polish sausage, bottled water and cans of pop.
He also sells chicken burritos, but a hand-lettered sign on yellow tagboard alerts diners to Sayied’s specialty: “Veggie Bollani.”
The Afghan snack, also spelled “bolani,” is a grilled flatbread filled with potatoes, cilantro, sauteed onion and scallions. A spicy tomato sauce gives a slow heat and a particular tang. Think folded tortilla with an Indian samosa filling.
He makes the bollani (sometimes with chicken or spinach along with the potato filling), chicken burritos and breakfast burritos from scratch. After nearly two decades, he has plenty of regulars and knows a thing or two about what people want for breakfast.
Just about every day, Sayied sells at least one hot dog before 8 a.m. And he’s there just about every day of the year.
“My customers, my family, they think I am crazy. I am not crazy,” says Sayied, who grew up in Kabul, where the winters match Denver’s. “This past winter, it was minus 14, with the wind chill minus 36 degrees, and I was there.”
He has a simple explanation: “You have a job. I have a job. I have to do it. And I am really in love with cooking.”
Soon, Sayied will park his cart for good, and open a restaurant in Fort Collins. He hopes to have Maza Kabob up and running before the end of this year, he says.
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com
Rocky’s Hot Dog
Hot dogs, burritos and Afghan bollani. Corner of 17th and Market streets downtown. 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily
