WEST HAVEN, April 25, 2025 — (Pictured): Mayor Dorinda Borer, center, helps Frankies of West Haven owner Balwinder “Bill” Singh cut the ribbon to celebrate the hot dog restaurant’s 51st anniversary and grand reopening at 1151 Boston Post Road on Thursday, April 24.
Joining the ribbon-cutting are, from left, longtime Frankies employee Elvia Avesicha; Singh’s daughter, Nancy Kailey, and his wife, Parveen Kaur; 4th District Councilman Gary Donovan; Zoning Board of Appeals Commissioner Rich De Leo; Simon McDonald, the director of membership and marketing at the Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce; and Planning and Zoning Commission member Sammy Rivera.
The chamber-organized ceremony featured remarks by Borer and McDonald, who both congratulated Singh on the restaurant’s milestone.
Singh has owned the West Haven Frankies for 17 of its 51 years in business.
The 2,800-square-foot restaurant boasts a large outdoor patio with picnic tables and umbrellas.
Billed as “The Gourmet of Fast Food,” Frankies has been a Route 1 institution near West Haven’s Meloy Road since 1974. It serves breakfast daily and specializes in footlong hot dogs, burgers, french fries, submarine sandwiches, barbecue ribs, Buffalo wings, seafood, soft serve ice cream and milkshakes.
The iconic fast-food franchise, founded in Waterbury in 1937 by Frank Caiazzo, has five other locations in Connecticut.
Caiazzo was notable for his motto during the Great Depression: “Come in and eat or we’ll both starve!”
(City Photos/Michael P. Walsh)
