It’s easy to make a good hot dog, but a great hot dog? Not as easy. For that, your answer might lie with Okie Dokie Smokies. It’s been in business since December 2025, and has collaborated with plenty of Edmonton staple restaurants, like Little Wolf, High Dough, Farrow, Otto and Boxer.
“It’s been great to have them on board,” says Jarrett Gauthier, who runs Okie Dokie, next to High Dough on Calgary Trail.
Formerly Modest Meats, the Okie Dokie owners pitched the idea to focus on gourmet sausages and barbecue to Shaun Hicks of Little Wolf, who thought it was a good idea and connected them with Gauthier.
“I’ve been making sausages for years,” says Gauthier, “and I’ve been passionate about barbecue for a while now, so he thought I’d be the guy for the job, and here I am.” Gauthier got his start in the world of sausage making from a friend in Vancouver who owns a charcuterie shop, and fell in love with the tactile process about five years ago while running a charcuterie-making program at Eleanor & Laurent and La Petite Iza. All of this to say: the man knows a good sausage, and that’s what you need to make a great hot dog.
“A hot dog is a blank canvas, you can put whatever you want on it and usually it can’t go wrong,” Gauthier says. There are two hot dogs on the lunch menu at Okie Dokie: the German Brat and the Jalapeno Cheddar Dog. The brat is simpler, an all-pork German-style Bratwurst with sautéed onions and mustard on a bun. The Jalapeno Cheddar Dog is topped with smoked pulled pork, Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce and sweet pickled jalapenos on top of a toasted bun. Gauthier says its experience is “over the top.” He hopes that people feel inspired by the flavours he pioneers at Okie Dokie to try out new combinations of their own at home.
The toppings on a hot dog can get experimental, but Gauthier has a more mathematical process when it comes to making Okie Dokie’s smokies and other sausages. In fact, he keeps a spreadsheet to make sure the ratios of different ingredients (water, spices and bindings) are right so the sausages come out perfect every time.
He says getting the proportions right is the secret to making the best sausages possible. The business works in small batches, giving Gauthier the leeway to get creative and “outlandish.” (He guarantees some of his creations can not be found anywhere else in Edmonton).
As for the other half of Okie Dokie’s business, barbecue? Its secret is patience. “We have a Texas-style smoker behind the shop, I’ve been cooking briskets there and that’s a 12-hour process,” he says. “Being passionate about what you’re doing helps too.” For that 12 hours of cook-time the brisket sits in the outdoor offset smoker basking in the output of the maple wood fire. After soaking up all the flavour from the smoker, it’ll go home with a customer or become the centrepiece of Okie Dokie’s Tipsy Texan Sandwich.
And if you want your own gourmet hot dog experience at home? Okie Dokie has something to offer. You can bring home both the German Bratwurst, and Jalapeno and Cheddar sausages used for the in-store menu along with other options including Char Siu, Italian Fennel, All-pork Smokies, Andouille Smokies and Texas All-Beef Hot Links.
And once you have your sausages, why not try getting a little experimental with the toppings? It’s a blank canvas, after all.
Okie Dokie Smokies
Strathcona Junction | 7345 104 Street NW, Edmonton | okiedokiesmokies.ca
