Murray Handwerker, who helped grow Nathan’s Famous from his father’s Coney Island hot dog stand into a national franchise, died Saturday at his home in Palm Beach Gardens. He was 89.
His son, Bill, said his father had suffered from dementia and died in his sleep.
Handwerker’s father Nathan opened the Coney Island stand in 1916, four years after emigrating from Poland. Murray was born five years later, on July 25, 1921, and spent so much time in the restaurant he said he came to regard the frankfurter bun boxes as his playpen.
Murray went on to work in nearly every aspect of the business, from stacking pallets of hot dogs to manning the grill. As a teenager, Murray told his son he sometimes worked at the grill so long his body had trouble recovering.