Jaequan Faulkner is a 13-year-old with ambition \u2026 and some darn good hot dogs and polish sausages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2016 Faulkner has set-up shop outside his house at 1510 Penn Ave. N in Minneapolis selling hot dogs, polish sausages, water, soft drinks and chips. The enterprising young man said he set up shop to make money mostly to buy clothes. But while the sun has been out much of this summer, someone tried to rain on Faulkner\u2019s stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A person not publicly named placed a call to the Minneapolis Health Department stating, in effect, the young entrepreneur should be shut down because he was not properly licensed. And true, Faulkner \u2013 like most kids with a lemonade (or in this case, hot dog) stands \u2013 was not, and thus was in violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faulkner\u2019s stand had to be shut down immediately. But staff inside the city\u2019s health department didn\u2019t go about business as usual, and instead they stepped in to assist the young entrepreneur. Instead of shutting him down, they cleared the way for Faulkner to get properly licensed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minnesota Health Department (MHD) staff reached out to the people at the Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON), a business incubator and resource center in North Minneapolis, to connect the organization with Faulkner so he could go through the training of proper food handling to receive his license. MHD staff also chipped-in \u2013 along with the Minneapolis Urban League and others \u2013 to help pay for the necessary license. The city also donated equipment for a proper hand washing station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now properly trained and licensed, Faulkner\u2019s stand re-opened July 16 under the banner Faulkner\u2019s Old Fashioned Hot Dogs. The news was such a big deal that CNN shined a national spotlight on the opening. The soon-to-be 8th<\/sup> grader at Sojourner Truth Academy said the experience and support has been overwhelming and he is thrilled to be a licensed business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe permit let\u2019s everybody know that I\u2019m official and I\u2019m really about business,\u201d said Faulkner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said his stand is more than a business, it\u2019s an opportunity to tell a positive story about North Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c(The hot dog stand) was never about money. It\u2019s about doing something positive. Just being over here (North Minneapolis) doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m ghetto. Just because I\u2019m Black doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not a decent person,\u201d said the young entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faulkner said he sees upwards of 300 customers a day at the stand that is open Monday \u2013 Friday from 11 a.m. \u2013 3 p.m. \u2013 hours Faulkner is not all that thrilled about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wanted to be open until 7 (p.m.) but they say I can\u2019t because of something called child labor, but I don\u2019t understand that \u2026 it\u2019s my business,\u201d said Faulkner laughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jaequan Faulkner is a 13-year-old with ambition \u2026 and some darn good hot dogs and polish sausages. Since 2016 Faulkner has set-up shop outside his house at 1510 Penn Ave. N in Minneapolis selling hot dogs, polish sausages, water, soft drinks and chips. The enterprising young man said he set up shop to make money […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2652,38,2653],"class_list":["post-4231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-jaequan-faulkner","tag-minneapolis","tag-minnesota-health-department-mhd","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4233,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions\/4233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}