When most people think of street vendors, they think of poor guys selling old hot dogs that would make a billy goat sick.

Well, Mark Gaspre of Houston, Texas makes more money with his street vending business than most of his customers make wearing a suit and tie and work 9-5 jobs. Mark, who owns Hog Dog Nation vending business is making a small fortune. He is bringing in $250,000 a year selling hot dogs to hungry business men who are looking for a quick bite to eat between meeting and on walks between buildings in downtown Houston. But he has not stopped there. In recent years, Houston has built several sports arenas in the downtown area, and Mark never misses a game. He pushes his tasty hot dogs to hungry sporty fans attending the games.

Mark has also recently bought four more vending carts, hired his brothers and sister to help operate them. He hopes to bring his income to almost $700,000 a year by the summer of 2009.

“Operating a vending business is tough” Marc says, but he says it’s worth it. “I make a lot of money, and I make a lot of money doing something that most people look down on”.

Marc first got started in the vending business empire when he was a parking lot attendant downtown. As he sat in the Houston heat making $6.00/hr he noticed some vendors were pulling in some good money selling small simple items such as bottled water. Mark wondered why he should sit and make $6.00 per hour when he could be making a lot more money for just standing on his feet.

He make a visit to his local sporting goods shop and bought a 90 quart ice cooler and started selling bottled water along with the other vendors. Mark’s good sense of humor seemed to help him edge out the competition in the “battle of the bottles” as they called it.

Once he started to dominate, he decided to branch out and sell an items that the other vendors were not selling. “If they were thirsty, they must be hungry too” he though.

Mark borrowed $1,000 from his brother and bought a hot dog vending cart, and the rest is history.