One person stands out above the others when it comes to competitive hot dog eating, and that person is Joey Chestnut.
He is the most successful professional dog eater of all time because he has won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest 13 times in the past 14 years.
Does Joey have a second job despite receiving $10,000 every time he wins a hot dog eating competition and a respectable sum of money for the other food records he breaks?
Joey Chestnut Day Job: What is Joey Chestnut’s real job?
While Joey does work another job, competitive eating is his main source of revenue.
Without taking into account commercial deals and other TV appearances, like the time he participated in The Amazing Race, the man earns roughly $150,000 from eating events alone.
However, Joey did attend school for a specific career—civil engineering—and it wasn’t to gargle hot dogs.
Joey studied at San Jose University and received his degree in 2005. Then a Major League Eating competitor, he scaled back his eating habits in 2009 to devote more time to his full-time construction and civil engineering work.
Joey’s construction job is now part-time work, and competitive eating is now his full-time profession.
However, the delicious siren’s call of eating seemingly inhuman amounts of food in a short amount of time kept calling to him.