If you get hungry while you’re keeping cool on Lake Murray, you might seek out the reservoir’s resident floating hotdog stand.

SunDogs of Lake Murray, owned by Langley and Tom Shealy, is well on its way into its fourth season of bringing hotdogs, boiled peanuts, ice cream and the occasional pizza to lake goers.

The Chapin couple took over the 20-foot pontoon boat from previous owner and neighbor Steve Jones in 2020, telling the Chronicle that the boat fell into their lap at just the right time.

Langley added that Jones was tired of running both the boat and his hotdog cart out in Chapin, with the couple renaming it and keeping it in service.

“We were out in the sun, selling hotdogs.” Langley said about how the boat came to be called SunDogs “It pretty much came from a sense of, you know, this is exactly what we're doing and we're the only ones doing it. So SunDogs of Lake Murray made sense.”

The boat runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day and can be seen around Lake Murray events like Reggaetronic, a floating music festival. According to Langley, they only run on weekends unless it's a holiday, adding that for Fourth of July week they were on the lake Saturday through Tuesday.

The boat has since begun to run a familiar route for lake goers, bringing their goods to various islands, including Goat, Bomb, Spence and Bundrick (AKA Sandy Beach).

Langley said the biggest challenge they face on the water is inexperienced boaters and children, adding that people don’t understand maintaining speed and distance like they do on other roads.

She said that events like Reggaetronic where there are a lot of people in boats and floats in the water along with all the anchor lines cause some issues navigating their boat.

“They're not problems, just a little bit of aggravation.” she said.

In the coming years, this will hopefully become a smaller challenge for the business thanks to a recently passed update to the state’s boating safety and education law that will require individuals born after July 1, 2007 to take a safety course to be able to operate a vessel by themselves. 

When it comes to preparing to be on the lake, Langley said most of that time goes to ensuring they have enough food, adding that there is the potential of selling 1,000 hotdogs during each trip. 

The owner told the Chronicle that all food is prepared beforehand in their home kitchen, and the boat itself is equipped with items to help keep everything warm.

When it comes to how much they make, Langley told the Chronicle that the boat is a great side hustle, adding that on large holiday weekends they do see an influx of sales.

“We're the only ones out there doing it right now,” she said. “There have been others that have, have tried, but we've been pretty much successful at sticking with it.”