What Makes Detroit's Beloved Hani So Special?

Most major metropolises, it seems, have their culinary specialties, and Detroit is no exception. The city may be best known for the Detroit-style hot dogs known as coneys, square-cut Detroit-style pizza, Vernor's ginger ale, and Faygo (the soda brand beloved by Juggalos). But some Detroit food classics are legendary in a more local sense of the word. One such dish is the Hani, a sandwich that isn't too well-known outside the Motor City. On its home field, however, it's a fan favorite — quite literally so at Comerica Field, where it's on the concessions menu for Tigers home games.

The Hani is named after its creator, who was a cook at National Coney Island. Despite its birthplace, it bears little resemblance to its tube steak siblings. Instead, the Hani was — and remains — a chicken sandwich, albeit one that predates the modern-day fast-food Chicken Sandwich Wars by several decades. If you're visiting Motown for the first time, you could give the chicken chains a miss and head straight for any place with Hanis on the menu so you can see for yourself what all the (low-key) fuss is about.

As the story goes, a chef named Hani (first or last, our sources do not say) liked to play around with the menu at National Coney Island where he was employed. That checks out, since grilling hot dogs all day could get a bit boring. It seems he liked to create special off-menu items such as omelets for regular customers, but one night in 1985 he came up with a flat, griddle-cooked sandwich filled with a cheese-topped chicken tender. This simple sandwich caught on with the late-night bar crowd, and soon other restaurants started copying the idea. Eventually, Hani's (or Mr. Hani's? We don't want to deny him his proper honorific if this is a last name) employer filed for a trademark on the name of the sandwich, so this means that any sandwich today that is actually marketed under the name either comes from one of the handful of businesses owned by National Coney Island or else is some kind of scofflaw.

Knockoffs notwithstanding, the Hani has done very well by National Coney Island over the years (and we can only hope that its creator has been compensated accordingly). In a 2015 customer survey, it was chosen as the chain's best sandwich, beating out its eponymous hot dogs. Even today, this sandwich, which was added to the menu 20 years after the chain was founded, remains its top-selling sandwich.

The very first Hanis seem to have been made from some type of flat bread topped with nothing more than a piece of chicken and some melted cheese. Today it has evolved to some extent where a chicken tenderloin is wrapped in a pita and topped with both Swiss and cheddar as well as lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise or a "mayo blend," whatever that might be. (Miracle Whip, perhaps? Or maybe a combination of the two? This may warrant further investigation.)

While there are a few recipes on the internet for DIY Hanis, these tend to take a few liberties with the original creation. They may swap out the cheddar/Swiss blend for another cheese, either downgrading to sliced American or going upscale with brie, or they might replace the mayonnaise with ranch dressing. Other alterations include the addition of onions and dill pickle slices or using naan in place of pita. If you make any or all of these tweaks, is your sandwich still a Hani? Well, technically any sandwich not made by a National Coney Island affiliate has no right to use the name, so you can consider your homemade cheesy chicken pita to be Hani-adjacent at best.

While your homemade Hani may not merit that name no matter how closely it adheres to the original recipe, trademarked Hanis can and do change up the sandwich fillings and toppings. One pretty standard option offered by National Coney Island is to replace the fried chicken tender with a grilled one, while you can also order a plant-based burger in place of the chicken. This restaurant, as opposed to its spin-off Pop's Hani Shop, is also now making its original Hanis with American cheese in place of cheddar, although the Swiss remains.

NCI's Hani variations include one made with bacon, one with barbecue sauce, and one with Buffalo sauce, this last-named one uniting two towns on the shores of Lake Erie. There's also a geographically vague "southwest" one topped with chipotle-seasoned mayonnaise and pepper jack cheese but the most off-piste Hani of all has to be the fish version that may be offered for Lent. Pop's has a slightly more hipsterish vibe, with Hani variants including one with fresh basil, garlic parmesan sauce, and mozzarella, another with avocado ranch dressing and bacon, and yet another featuring barbecue sauce made from Brix black cherry soda. Brix is a small-batch craft soda from Grand Rapids, so that makes it a local(ish) brand.

Since National Coney Island trademarked the name, the only place you can get an official Haney is either at one of its locations — which, despite the moniker "National" — are restricted to the Detroit area or at its (so far) one and only spin-off, Pop's. Supposedly other NCI affiliates are in the works, as the chain has reportedly reserved the names Hani House, Hani Hut, and House of Hani, amongst others, although none of these seems to be operating as a restaurant at present. When and if the last one comes into being, however, it may be sharing its name with a Kuwait-based seller of beauty supplies.

Hani sandwiches by any other name can be found on menus of other establishments, however, particularly ones that, like NCI, also specialize in coney dogs. At Jimmy's Coney Grill, you'd order a Jimmy's Pita, while at Mark's Midtown in Ann Arbor, it's called the chicken strip pita or grilled chicken pita. American Coney Island, too, offers a grilled chicken pita, although from the menu it seems they don't do fried.

As for whose Hani is best, we really couldn't say, since everyone has their own preference. Hands-down however, the best ambiance award goes to the NCI stand at Comerica Park since what Hani (or any other kind of food or drink, really) wouldn't taste better at a ball game?