When now-Senator John Hickenlooper was mayor of Denver, he usually sent staff to pick up Italian sausages for cabinet meetings. Fellow senator Michael Bennet prefers bratwursts.
"It was always a highlight of the day," Hancock tells Westword. "Grab a hot dog and chat with her about what was going on outside the building on any given day. "
Sixty-year-old Armas has been slinging hot dogs for thirty years from her cart parked just outside the Denver City and County Building, right up the street from courts, jails and other municipal offices — learning all the orders of the Mile High City's bigwigs along the way.
“There aren’t many constants in a job like this," Hancock notes, "but one thing that is a constant is Marcella out there with her hot dog cart."
Mike Johnston will be sworn in as Denver's mayor at 10 a.m. today, July 17 — just two days before National Hot Dog Day, which falls on the third Wednesday of July. So the next time Hancock sees Armas, he will no longer be mayor.
"While I’ll miss seeing her once I leave office, I know she’ll continue to be there for all her customers, and I’ll certainly try to stop by every once in a while to say hello when I can," he says.
"I get sheriffs, marshals, I get the cops. I get all of them," Armas says. "When you've been here for so long, someone always knows you're here, and you get a lot of customers."
Inmates at the Denver City Jail are able to gaze down at Armas and her delicious street meat from their place of confinement; once released, they'll often come up to her and say things like, "I've been craving a chili cheese dog for three days," she notes.
"I think you're pretty hungry, because you eat something different in there than when you come out," she jokes, adding that she can only imagine how bad the food in jail could be.
The juvenile court used to be nearby, and a customer once told her that the only bright side of going to court when he was younger was the hot dog that his mom would buy from Armas before they went home.
The legendary vendor is a big fan of the Denver Police Fallen Officers Memorial Ceremony that takes place nearby every May during National Police Week. Denver's sports teams also pass in front of her during the championship parades — which has given her a chance to see members of the Nuggets, Broncos and Avalanche up close.
"And then you've got your 4/20, those people are nice," she says of the annual marijuana celebration at Civic Center Park. "Everyone's happy on 4/20."
Armas sets up her four-foot-long silver cart — made in Brooklyn, New York — along with a small Weber grill (she likes it because it fits on the cart and parts are easy to find) and a lawn chair at 10 a.m. every Monday through Friday; a striped umbrella provides some shade. While she says she tries to stick to a schedule, she usually stays open until she serves every single customer who manages to catch her before she packs up at 2:15 p.m.
One of her favorite parts about being Denver's hot dog hero is how it gives her "more time with [her] family" and "more leisure time" every day. "You're not working eight hours a day, killing yourself seven days a week," she says.
Her menu is a square wooden board with painted-on prices and options, as well as "Marcella's Cart" written neatly across the top. She offers a classic hot dog for $2; jumbo dogs, Italian sausages, bratwurst and spicy Polish sausages for $6; and burgers and nachos for $4.
Selling hot dogs runs in the family: Marcella Armas's nephew, Marcello Rodriguez, fires up his Weber grill by the courthouse.
Bennito L. Kelty
For a dollar, patrons can also cool down with a can of soda or add a bag of chips or a cookie — and all credit cards are accepted.
"I come here because it's one of the best and prices are decent," says local Nash Mondragon while taking a break from riding his bike under the shade of a tree in front of Armas's cart.
Even though he didn't order anything this time around (he says he's watching his weight), Mondragon still likes to stop and catch up with Armas, whom he met more than a decade ago. "I've known her as a friend for a long time," he says.
Many people feel the same way, especially law enforcement officials and City and County of Denver employees.
"Everyone inside will ask, 'Hey, is Marcella outside?' and those that are close to the window will tell us, or people who already know will say something," says Corrin Orozco, who works for Denver District Court. "It's just close, and she's someone we've been going to for a long time."
Not only is Armas a familiar face who serves good food, but "sometimes she knows what's going on in the court before we do," Orozco adds. "So we'll usually learn something from her."
Armas was born in Denver and grew up in the Washington Park neighborhood — or "the WP," as she and her friends called it. Her parents emigrated from Peru "to give their children a better life," she says, and they made a living running the El Rancho restaurant that was once at Alameda Avenue and South Pearl Street.
Despite her family's background in the food business, the first time Armas thought about slinging dogs was after she wrote a paper in junior high school about a New Yorker who put their kid through Harvard by selling franks. That inspired her to ask her mom for a hot dog cart when she was only fourteen so that she could start making money, she recalls.
"I used to push it around the neighborhood," she says. "I sold soda, I sold sandwiches and watermelon."
Soon her parents were investing more in hot dog carts, which are cheap and easy to set up; Armas's older sister followed her into the business. After she retired two years ago, Armas's nephew, 23-year-old Marcello Rodriguez, took over the cart. He sells hots dogs, burgers and nachos just a few blocks from Armas at West 14th Avenue and Elati Street, right in front of the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse.
The more serious trials are scheduled at the courthouse on Thursdays and Fridays, Rodriguez says, and he'll often hear from people on their way to court before their lives are possibly changed forever.
"Someone could be getting the death penalty or doing life," he says. "It's sad to hear stuff like that. Some people are here just to be there with their families or their loved ones, or they're just fighting for their family's life."
People will often treat Rodriguez like a street therapist and tell him what's going on in their lives and criminal cases. "They're always very open about what's going on," he says. "It's always surprising to me. It probably helps them just to let it out, to have someone else there to talk to about it."
Armas and Rodriguez don't plan to hang up the tongs anytime soon; they both say they expect to be in that part of downtown a while longer. They have the city permits they need to operate there, the mobile licenses they need to sell food, and the insurance on their equipment. But there's more involved with their work.
Armas says she loves coming back to her spot and hearing from her regulars.
"The City and County of Denver has been amazing throughout the years that I've been here," she says. "They've been good to me — the Denver Police, Denver Sheriff's, the City and County of Denver, the court districts, even the Denver Mint. Everyone here has been very kind to me."
