Born in Birmingham, AL on March 27, 1926, Solomon Zarzour was a second generation American whose parents emigrated from Lebanon. He grew up on Southside and attended Glen Iris School but left after finishing seventh grade to work behind the meat counter at a Southside grocery store. World War II was raging when Zarzour turned 18 in 1944. He enlisted in the Army and served in the European theater. In August 1945, he was 14 days out to sea on a troop ship bound for Japan when the Japanese surrendered and the war ended. Zarzour got into the hot dog business when he was “a barbecue man” at his cousin’s restaurant, Ed Salem’s Drive In. A Greek friend, “Mr. Gus,” who owned a hot dog place at Third Avenue and 25th Street North, urged him to open a hot dog stand. “He said, are you going to work for Ed Salem all your life? Go into the hot dog business.” Zarzour recalled. He opened his first stand in 1960 on Southside, at 20th Street and Fourth Avenue South. Ten years later, he sold it and opened Sol’s Hot Dogs at 3002 12th Ave. North. Sol’s has been a fixture in Norwood ever since.