Nikki’s Not Dog Stand, nestled in the heart of Sag Harbor Village, is a place where retro comfort meets a forward-thinking approach to sustainability.
Opened in June 2024 by Nikki Glick, this quirky stand is redefining classic American diner food with a plant-based twist. As you step inside, you’re transported back to the 1950s.
The diner’s retro aesthetic instantly evokes nostalgia, with its red-checkered floor, iconic baseball posters of legends like Yogi Berra and Willie Mays, and Etta James crooning from the speakers.
But while the atmosphere is pure mid-century Americana, the food is entirely plant-based, created to honor the flavors of the past while catering to today’s growing demand for sustainable and health-conscious dining options.
Nikki’s motto, “where the past meets the future,” is not just about the decor but about the food itself. Intrigued by her motto, I reached out to Nikki to learn more about her and her Not Dog Stand with these questions.
Your background includes being a certified yoga teacher. Did this inspire you to create a plant-based version of classic American diner food? How so?
Yoga is about integration. The word yoga comes from the sanskrit root Yuj– which means to join, to unite. To realize that things that seem separate maybe are not. Like classic diner food and vegan food.
Can you share a bit more about your partnership with Katsuji Tanabe and how his culinary expertise has shaped the menu at Nikki’s Not Dog Stand?
Mostly Kat showed me the way around a pro kitchen. The goal is to cook like I am in my own kitchen at home, to be that relaxed and free. So he really helped me get comfortable in a more professional setting.
It was pretty intimidating at first, but Kat has always believed in me. When an accomplished chef keeps telling you that you are on the right track, it is invaluable. Also, we go way back, are like brother and sister, so we can step on each other’s toes without anyone getting their feelings hurt.
That helps a lot when creating. If you’ve seen the movie Tampopo, that’s sort of what it was like with me and Kat in the kitchen. It was a training process and I was Tampopo.
Your motto is “where the past meets the future.” How do you balance creating a nostalgic experience while promoting a forward-thinking, sustainable approach to food?
Nostalgia is a very dangerous thing. The past was never as great as some of us like to think it was. What we are celebrating is American innovation. Combining the health food of the 60s counterculture movement with the beautiful style and forms of the 40s and 50s.
The hippies really planted the seeds for the mainstream vegan movement — places like Whole Foods. And so what if we could kind of create a time machine and mix the dynamic aspects of all these different times in America?
When we are trying to evolve, become healthier, sometimes we want to erase our past. But of course we cannot. So, it’s not about nostalgia. It’s about integrating the past, present, and future.
Just like veganism is innovative, so were diners, and Hank Williams, and McDonald’s, and Bud Powell and baseball and Joni Mitchell and Alice Waters … it’s all American innovation. It’s all of a piece. Maybe we can slip the ghost of Elvis a peanut butter, banana, and vegan bacon sandwich. The past needs healing too.
What specific steps have you taken to ensure Nikki’s Not Dog Stand is as eco-friendly as possible, from sourcing ingredients to packaging?
I mean, we are using tin-foil to deliver the Not Dogs hot, so we are by no means some bastion of sustainability. We do what we can, what feels right, what feels natural.
Once you start paying attention to how stuff impacts the planet, it just sort of naturally happens. Sometimes it can be more expensive to get the eco-friendly napkin, or wrapper, or cup. But actually, surprisingly, often it is not. That said, we still have a long, long way to go. And that’s okay.
We are not in some race or competition to be pure. Some people think that what they are doing is pure because it goes against what they used to do. But that is a kind of false heroism.
We sell Hal’s Seltzer, in plastic bottles, I’m a New Yorker– I love Hal’s. But once I can find the right deal, we will have Hal’s in cans. Sometimes it’s just about what’s available, and you can’t be Captain Planet. And the people who say they are Captain Planet, they are often flying around on jets.
How have customers responded to your plant-based versions of classic dishes? Do you find that people are drawn in by the nostalgia, the sustainability, or both?
Again, we are not serving nostalgia. We are serving innovation. We live in a time right now where the binary computer tells us that reality is in two pieces.
There is black and white, there is us and them, there is past and future, etc… So naturally a vegan hot dog stand with 1950s sensibilities is split in two– it is nostalgia and it is sustainable. But if we take off our Google glasses, it is just one thing. It’s American.
You donate 10% of your profits to local food banks — why is this important to you, and how do you see Nikki’s Not Dog Stand contributing to the Sag Harbor community in the future?
Sag Harbor has an incredible artist community and history. That said, my husband and I looked all over Long Island for the right space, for years.
At one point it looked like we would be opening in Hampton Bays, but that fell through. This was just the right modest space for what we were trying to do.
However, the rent is steep. Which impacts not just us, but also, by paying it, we inadvertently become part of the problem that is gentrifying Sag Harbor.
So, it’s not so simple. But we are going to do our best to try to support Sag Harbor, and not just our landlord. The goal is to feed everyone, even if that goal is impossible to reach. It all goes back to integration, I guess. It’s a delusion to think that I am here and you are out there.
Nikki’s Not Dog Stand, 51 Division Street, Sag Harbor, NY, is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Check out its full menu at Nikki’s Not Dog Stand‘s website.
