For years, Robert Straniere was entrenched in Albany politics, pushing legislation for his Assembly district. These days, he learns about the budget only from the newspaper, spending his time instead taste-testing hot dogs, duck dogs, and soy dogs.

The Staten Island politician, who was unseated by a fellow Republican in an upset in 2004 after 24 years in the Assembly, is putting the finishing touches on the menu for his soon-to-open hot dog joint on the corner of Chambers and Church streets in Lower Manhattan.

“It’s amazing, even to me, that I could be in politics all of those years and just kind of walk away. But this is a second career for me,” Mr. Straniere said the other day at his store, the New York City Hot Dog Company, which was strewn with boxes and equipment waiting to be unwrapped.

The store, which has bright yellow French’s mustard-colored counters and walls the shade of ketchup, is due to open later this month and is a block away from a popular hot dog and juice business, Mike’s Papaya.

Mr. Straniere, who still wears the signature dark suit of a politician, said he isn’t worried about the competition, adding that his store will carve out its own niche by putting a healthful twist on one of America’s most iconic fast foods and offering a variety of toppings and sides.

The menu will include the standard Sabrett beef hot dogs and kosher Hebrew Nationals, along with Kobe beef dogs, duck dogs, vegetable dogs, soy dogs, and a smorgasbord of toppings. It also will feature whole-wheat buns and convection cooked french fries. Prices will range from $1.50 for a regular hot dog to $9 for a Kobe beef dog.

The transition to hot dog store from Albany politics may appear strange, but Mr. Straniere bills it as a natural entrepreneurial move for a businessman and lawyer who is also a hot dog-eating season ticket holder for three professional New York sports teams: the Yankees, the Jets, and the Knicks. He said he has a hot dog dinner at least two or three times a week, depending on whether his teams are playing at home.

The hot dog idea came to Mr. Straniere less than two months after the Staten Island Republican establishment delivered the stinging defeat that topped off several years of shunning him publicly.

Mr. Straniere, who says he harbors no animosity about what happened, was on a trip to China, eating Peking duck with some Chinese business associates who said there was a market in their country for American hot dogs. He is still working on getting hot dogs to China, but shortly after he returned from his trip, the New York City Hot Dog Company was created. He and his partner, Fred Catapano, are now planning to open one store in each borough and eventually aiming to go national.

While on Staten Island, Mr. Straniere was often accused of spending more time in his Manhattan apartment than at his Staten Island home. He still owns a home on Staten Island, but he and his wife now live full time on 57th Street and Second Avenue. Last summer, he hosted a taste test for 24 types of dogs at the apartment.

The move to the food industry from politics is not unprecedented. In 1990, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “From Commissioner to Knishener” about a commissioner of substance abuse services under Governor Cuomo, Julio Martinez, who opened a hot dog stand outside the state Capitol building after being forced to resign. Mr. Straniere said he remembers buying “two hot dogs for two bucks” from Mr. Martinez on Tuesday afternoons. Another lawmaker who made the move to the food industry from government is a former Manhattan assemblyman, Jerry Kretchmer, who went on to own Mesa and Gotham Bar & Grill.

A political consultant, Evan Stavisky, commented on Mr. Straniere’s new business by invoking Otto von Bismarck’s famous quip: “Laws are like sausage. It’s better not to see them being made.” He joked, “Bob Straniere has embraced both.”

The manager of Mike’s Papaya, Sajjad Piracha, welcomed the new competition a block away, saying there is plenty of room for two hot dog operations in the same neighborhood. He wished the new hot dog company good luck, but said the business is not an easy one, especially as the neighborhood clears out on weekends.

Mr. Straniere sees potential hot dog eaters with every new building that is constructed. He also said his three sons are involved in the business: One is a principal in the company, one designed the store logo, and a third is consulting on the business’s technology.

Still, Mr. Straniere said he’s had so many hot dogs recently that he went across Chambers Street for a hamburger the other day.