ANDERSON — A husband and wife team is hoping that the Vienna beef hot dog — much loved in the Windy City — will become a new local craze.

Dave and Janeen Piekarz have wanted for years to open a restaurant that served the same pure beef franks that David enjoyed at baseball games while living in Chicago.

“This concept is all over Chicago,” Dave Piekarz, 41, said.

He and his wife began in February converting a vacant storefront into Dave’s Taste of Chicago. The restaurant, located on University Boulevard west of Scatterfield Road, opens Wednesday with an 11 a.m. ribbon cutting by Mayor Kris Ockomon.

Dave’s will also serve sandwiches, salads ,soup and standard side items like French fries. Combo meals are in the $5 range.

But until the grand unveiling, the Piekarzs still must finish handing Chicago-themed decor and training their staff of 10.

Some of those workers are students from Anderson University, and while the Piekarzs said they expect to draw customers from all over the city, they hope their location close to campus attracts students.

“The AU crowd would be the icing on the cake,” Dave Piekarz said.

So why is he opening his shop just as students are leaving for summer vacation? The owners said it’s because they want to have all the kinks worked out by the time students return in August.

But students have been reluctant to support restaurants even a short walk from campus, said John McCord, who in 2003 opened The Driving Center driving school in the same shopping center as Dave’s.

“The students at Anderson University, for whatever reason, have not embraced any of the restaurants around here,” McCord said.

But he’s said he’s happy to see a new neighboring restaurant on it’s way.

“It always looks a lot better when you’re got other tenants in the building,” he said.

Brandon’s Coffeehouse, which had been open for one year at the shopping center’s west end, closed in January. Owner Brent Brandon said at the time he’d had trouble gaining a stable customer base.

Aaron Smith, a graduate student in the university’s business school and a former employee at Brandon’s, said the Piekarzs are doing the right thing by not relying too heavily on campus support.