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A Tracy couple hopes serving up old favorites will be a recipe for success with local diners.
 Rahima and Mansoor Halimi stand in the main dining room of their new business, Dandy Dogs, on Tuesday. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press
Dandy Dogs, complete with black-and-white checkered floors and, eventually, a huge mural that will read "Lost in the ’50s Forever," celebrated its first week in business Tuesday. Even though Dandy Dogs shares a parking lot with In-N-Out and sits a stone’s throw away from McDonald’s, Nations Giant Hamburgers, Wendy’s and Denny’s, business is already booming.
Two years ago, owners Rahima and Mansoor Halimi bought the original Dandy Dog, which has been a favorite in Livermore since it opened 30 years ago. The Tracy couple decided to try out the concept here.
"We love it here," said 22-year-old Rahima Halimi, whose dream is that Dandy Dogs will become a beloved Central Valley chain. "Tracy is growing, but it still has a family atmosphere. That’s what we want our restaurant to be like."
Halimi fell in love with food service when she worked at Foster Freeze on Grant Line Road during high school. She quickly learned how to cook and order food, work the register and handle the lunch-hour rush.
"I had fun with customers," she said. "I learned it’s better to spend an extra minute with a customer to make sure their order is perfect instead of just hurry through it."
Halimi, a 2003 West High School graduate, attended San Joaquin Delta College for two years before she was drawn back into the restaurant business. She and her husband, who both moved from Afghanistan as toddlers, thought about opening an ethnic restaurant until they found a man in Livermore who wanted to sell Dandy Dogs.
"People don’t always like unique foods," she said. "Everybody loves a ’50s diner, and my husband and I love hamburgers."
Along with its standard hamburgers and hotdogs, Dandy Dogs serves Polish, Italian and linguica sausages, German bratwursts, curly fries, chicken strips, root beer floats and eight different milkshakes.
Rahima manages the restaurant while Mansoor works full-time as a sales representative for Hewlett Packard.
Rahima will briefly step away from the diner next month when she has the couple’s first baby.
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Much success on your business.